Something amazing happens when two very different people engage in dialogue with mutual respect and curiosity.
It has the potential to spark a unique conversation that grows something completely different.
The correspondence between Carl Jung, the eminent Swiss psychologist, and Wolfgang Pauli, the Swiss-Austrian Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist, illustrates this profoundly.
Their thoughtful exchange on the search for meaning and different facets of reality provided the space for new thinking to emerge. Including the first proposition of synchronicity as ‘meaningful coincidences’.
The distance between them – physically, in specialism and in time – created a powerful container for generative exchange. They had the space to think more deeply and let the others’ observations infuse their own.
It was framed by a clearly growing friendship and relationship of mutual honour. And the effects of intellectual cross-pollination are astonishing.
The contrast with our current means of communication is striking…
I wonder what quietly disruptive dialogue you want to cultivate? Or are already investing in…
I’d love to hear.
I am grateful to Maria Popova for her essays on the correspondence between Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli (1932 and 1958) in Brain Pickings.