Candid Conversations Newsletter Forming New Connections: When Strangers Meet

Some memories return not to haunt us, but to show us who we once were.

This week was a sobering reminder that winter is coming. A change in temperature. And if you are a Game of Thrones fan, that line sends a quiet shiver down your spine. Thursday was Thanksgiving, a day meant for gathering, gratitude, and remembrance. And with remembrance comes the echo of those who no longer share time or space with us, for reasons too many to name. Too nuanced to give language to.

Another perspective on change found its way in. And if you have been reading the past four editions, you can clearly see its perpetual evolution.

I have always been open, rooted in curiosity and drawn to what is meaningful. But this week caught me in a paradox:

Be rigid with boundaries, or stay open to being uncomfortable for a good enough cause.

Love.

Love is what Love does 💘

I still carry a memory.

Junior year of high school.

I was infatuated. Her skin was dark as chocolate, her smile could lift a room, her presence shaped the air around her. I could have bet everything that we would spend our lives together. But that belief shattered when I emigrated to the States. Life reshaped itself. Years later, we found ourselves just a train ride apart, yet the distance felt farther than any train could travel.

The Stranger Within 🫂

Books have always held a quiet sanctuary for me. The smell of the pages, the tearing sound of a new book opening, all of it brings me home to myself.

Recently, I have been rereading books that changed how I see the world. Not only for their stories, but for the voices behind them. Malcolm Gladwell is one of those voices.

On a recent trip, I started rereading Talking to Strangers. Through real events, from Penn State to Bernie Madoff, Gladwell reveals how people we trusted with care and responsibility wore one face in public and another in private. He asks a question that lingers:

How well do we actually know someone?

We often confuse familiarity with understanding. Intuition is not always interpretation. And that is where neuroscience enters the conversation.

Default to Truth 💯

Whenever we meet someone new, the mind collects data. It scans for patterns. It decides who we are to this person and how we should proceed.

We went to the same school.

We came from the same place.

We spoke often.

We believed we shared values.

I trusted her, until I did not.

Psychologist Timothy R. Levine called this the default to truth, a theory Gladwell later expanded on. It suggests that trust is our baseline setting, not because we are naive, but because suspicion is costly. But it still leaves us with the question: what is truth?

The Brain’s Need for Patterns 🧠

We default to truth not because we are naive, but because the brain needs shortcuts. It needs familiarity the way a lighthouse searches for land. Without it, we drift. And drifting is uncomfortable, and costly.

But sometimes discomfort is the birthplace of clarity.

Neuroscience tells us that the brain forms pathways through repetition, experience, and emotion. Someone hurts us and the brain builds a boundary. Someone shows care and we open the gate. But life is rarely that neat. We misread signals. We assign meaning where there may be none. We meet strangers and sometimes never realize we are one of them.

Here, change returns. Not as interruption, but as invitation.

Neuroplasticity: The Rewiring of Truth 🛜

Neuroscientists call it neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reshape itself through experience and intention.

Change is not just something that happens to us.

Change is something that happens in us.

But it requires friction.

It requires tension.

It requires presence.

Otherwise, the mind returns to the familiar loop, even when that loop leads nowhere.

Sometimes courage is not found in standing firm.

Sometimes courage is learning a new way, even when the old way once kept us safe.

Talking to Strangers, Talking to the One in the Mirror 🗣️

Gladwell’s question echoes:

How well do we actually know someone?

But maybe the deeper question is this:

How well do we know ourselves when the situation changes?

If we default to truth, then what do we do when truth shifts its shape?

When someone reveals a different layer?

When certainty steps back and ambiguity steps forward?

That is when we must speak to the stranger in the room.

And sometimes that stranger is us.

This is where new neural pathways form.

Where memory and imagination meet.

Where change stops being the villain

and becomes the guide.

Emerging From the Loop ➿

Perhaps that is why certain memories still hold power.

Not to haunt us, but to inform us.

Junior year. The girl with chocolate skin and a smile that lifted the air. The belief that love would hold. But time, identity, and migration reshaped the terrain. The heart learned new languages. The mind built new roads.

That was not failure.

That was neuroplasticity in motion.

Life saying there is more to you than this version.

Perhaps Truth Has Seasons 🍃

So what is truth?

Maybe truth is seasonal.

Maybe it evolves with us.

Maybe it becomes more accurate the more curious we become.

Perhaps the work is not to harden our assumptions,

but to soften our approach.

To train the mind to say,

I do not know yet, but I am willing to learn.

That is how new pathways form.

That is how strangers become familiar.

That is how we meet ourselves again,

with a little more patience than before. 

A little more intentional.

Perhaps truth is not something we keep.

Perhaps it is something we practice, and practice makes us better.

A Continued Call to Action 📞

As we continue to explore change and its evolving nature, we must also remember the people and places that have shaped us. Change is never abstract. It is carried in names, neighborhoods, families, and memories. It is carried in land and water.

Jamaica still needs us. She is still calling, and we must continue to answer.

Hurricane Melissa did not only devastate the southern coast. It changed lives. It tested will. In its wake, grief arrived, but so did courage. And courage must be met with care.

So, if you can give, give.

If all you can do is share, share widely.

And if neither is possible, hold a thought, whisper a prayer,

or offer a moment of grace for those who lost everything

and still find a way to rise.

Rebuilding a nation is a collective act of love.

🫵👉Support Jamaica’s Recovery