In the center

I took a course once on conversational analysis. The main textbook for the course began with a comparison of what happens in speech with what happens with vision. It talked about how the eye focused on something in the center of a vision field. Then it addressed what began to fade from the center to the periphera, and finally, what existed outside the field of vision.

The same is true with conversation. There is a focus on a topic. Of course there are peripheral topics that people think of while the topic under discussion is occurring. Some of these are brought to the center. Then there are those topics we associate to the topic under discussion, but we don't discuss them because they are too far afield from the topic under discussion.

That is why I like to hear people talk. It's a chess game. What is being discussed? Are there inuendoes? Will they surface from the periphera by being brought to the center? Will they be dropped? Are they in the center, but you just have to have 3-D glasses on to see them? What is thought that is never said? Training or experience or both help one to be a good judge of character. We need to be since people's talk and their actions are not seen in the same moment or the same context.