talk about people

There's a famous quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: "great minds discuss ideas, average ones events, mediocre ones discuss people". This affected me a lot growing up: I felt strongly that I should try to be a great mind, and not to waste time on transient gossip.

But life is never that simple, and in fact you can make a good case for discussing people. One basic case is that:

1. relationships are important
2. To have good relationships we need to care about and sometimes to reflect on what the other person is doing, what they're interested in, how they're feeling.
3. communication is processing. Talking about someone is an opportunity to think about them.

More generally, socially, it may be useful for a group of people to engage in discussions about people's relationships and their own personal characteristics, in ways that we'd stereotypically judge as stupid 'gossip'. Relationships are important, and just as it's important for an individual to engage in reflective thought about them, it could also be important for a group cognition to engage in reflective thought (aka discussion) about them.

These arguments may be true but wrong. It can be possible that the most interesting conversations are about ideas and events, and the best minds have those conversations, while also thinking solidly about relationships while avoiding malicious or vapid gossip. But I think a basic message does hold. It's important that I don't spend all of my time just thinking about my own plans or goals or aspirations; I can and should also think about other people's inner lives and goals and how I can help.