Mind Moves: Sitting on this train, in close proximity, we busy ourselves in different ways and bide our time as the purple-grey landscape whizzes by.
Commuters of every shape and size, we have been randomly thrown together into a loose-knit, mobile community.
A mostly silent community, give or take the odd phone conversation where voices are raised to ensure everyone in the carriage hears about "the new strategy", some "European directive" or other, or the latest "office scandal".
Life is passing by outside this window and I watch as it goes. I wonder when I die will my own life pass before me like this: snatches of work and family life interspersed with pastoral scenes of more quiet seclusion.
People appear momentarily here and there on the landscape, then fade into a blur. There is an order, a definite linear logic in the visual drama that unfolds. I imagine our lives as a more fragmented tapestry that is not so neatly arranged.
Sunrise breaks through my reverie. Dazzling light beams dance through our carriage but heads remain bowed as attentions remain firmly fixated on mobiles and laptops. I seem to be nature's only fan. Or perhaps just easily distracted.
Train etiquette would suggest we do not intrude on each other's presence. Except for brief eye-contact, half-smiles and furtive apologies as feet or papers stray across invisible boundary lines, we leave each other alone.
But the lady sitting opposite me is uncomfortable, I can tell; her agitation, occasional sighs, her constant shifting around suggest a discomfort with silence. She tries to engage the man sitting directly opposite her - me - who has taken refuge in his laptop. She tries to break through my protective bubble with "Oh it's all work, work, work, isn't it?" Now where have I heard that before?
Her phone rings and I hear her tell her friend she's heading for a funeral and feels exhausted. That's the trouble with humans - when you let go your projections about them, they turn into real people with their own heartaches, struggles and stories. It didn't seem quite right to continue to ignore her signals for conversation. The scenario that followed had a certain feeling of inevitability about it. I glanced up - it didn't take much - and within minutes I had her life history.
I had wanted to write about listening for this column. About the way simply being present to another person can itself be such a powerful agent for healing emotional distress.
To be present to another in a totally fresh and respectful way means you've got to die a little. Or at least be willing to lay aside your preconceptions, open your heart and hear something that you didn't already know.
I had some serious insights about listening but the unfolding drama of my train journey was too compelling. This column on listening became something else, a celebration of conversation. I closed my computer, put aside my agenda, and was rewarded with a series of discoveries and insights that were enriching.
This stranger on my train was an artist. She spoke about how art was essentially a discipline of listening. A way of noticing things that are often missed. She too had been stunned by the sunrise, and it was she who made me aware that the colour purple infuses much of the Irish winter landscape. We spoke about Tony O'Malley's current exhibition in Dublin, the powerful narrative it offered for a life richly lived and marked equally by suffering and joy. About life in Ireland when you could count on friends to stay put and be there for you when you needed them.
Everything is so mobile now, so changeable and unreliable. And, in so many ways, life can feel more lonely. People don't seem to have time to listen - to themselves or to one another.
There it was: the principle upon which my planned sermon on listening was predicated. Listening is a critical part of what draws us together into community. True listening depends on some core of silence and openness to life as we find it.
Creative conversation flows from a listening presence that gives space to the other before reacting, or attempting to put them right. These are the conversations that keep us alive. They remind us that we matter to one another and they leave us feeling more grounded and spacious about our lives. They leave us with the feeling we're not alone, that we belong in some corner of the world. In this country, we have a unique gift for creative conversation. Let's hope we don't lose it.
As long as there are people willing to risk a chat with a perfect stranger like myself hiding behind his laptop, there is hope we won't allow each other to retreat into a deadening kind of individualism and isolation.
• Dr Tony Bates is principal clinical psychologist in St James's Hospital, Dublin.
