The whole and its parts

The whole & its parts

Talking about the weather

It’s a time of the year during which the days seem to be very short, mainly grey and full of rain. In my past I wouldn’t even notice, I’d hurry to work, concentrate on it and leave other matters aside. It seemed to be a perfect way to deal with external events: only care about them when we must.

After shifting the way I work and live, I suddenly found myself noticing the weather. Even more interesting, my mood was adapting to the weather. Sunshine was more welcome and made the day bright. Darkness and rain seemed very dull.

The weather forecast has never been very interesting to me. I’ve usually found it weird to talk about the weather and only did it when nothing else seemed possible. The exchanges seemed repetitive, predictable and without interest.

I had missed the point.

We talk about the weather for at least two reasons.

The first reason being to have a subject to talk about, a subject allowing to learn to know each other. When we talk about the weather we assess if we can adjust to one another, find if we have similar assessments about life. Knowing similarities we share is well worth the time spent talking about the weather, they ease to start the work on more difficult subjects.

The other reason to talk about the weather is to deal with a changing environment and the impact it has on us. Our body measures, for example, the change in temperature or humidity and signals these to the brain. I’m not sure that our body needs our awareness in making sure that the external temperatures permit the temperature range the body needs. But I know that we need a mechanism to adapt ourselves to change even if it is only changing temperatures and season.

Talking about the weather helps us being aware of how the weather affects us and others. This information helps us to adjust ourselves to the external conditions.

Exchanging regularly about external conditions like weather end up training us. We create awareness. We engage with predicting how conditions will be, we learn to deal with them.

We still can’t change the weather, but change becomes more manageable.

External conditions shift from something that inevitably happens to a condition we’ve engaged with and are prepared for.

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