To me in particular, when it comes to small talk and big talk, the potency of meaning is the key term of engagement.

Potency of meaning comes from being connected into one another's worth from general to particular to general to particular to general, and so on, where the whole and the parts are interlinked.

Potency of meaning is the fuel of universal caring and bonding, where the comforting Presence, the council and the empowerment of God lives! Relevance and relatedness are the keys to the potency of meaning.

Such potency of meaning feeds me into who I am, according to my Maker's design of me. In such a blessed state, do I discover what I have, in terms of talents and inclinatios to express who I am.

As I get to know whom I am and what I have, I am then equipped to express who I am from what I have, by doing all that I am called to, in all the clarity being brought on by the transparent daylight of particular relevance within the framework of general relatedness, offered and revealed by the moment's needs.

There is an expression I keep hearing when it comes to big deal situation like politics and economics. Often I hear: "...the devil is in the details." So a good and healthy small talk is like keeping the devil out of the details of God's affair of sourcing the particular in tune with the general and vice-versa.

As Jesus speaks in terms relating to the topic of big talk-small talk, He says:

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Mt 12,33-37

Potency of meaning is an expression I use in opposition to the word "idle" that Jesus warns against.

So basically, "in general" is the common denominator that keeps the details of the particular free from confusion, deceit and evil.

The gift of Eternal Life forms the rails of the whole and the locomotive moving on those rails is our personal cultivation of the gift. Together, we are then carried homeward bound, each and all, by the constant growth of intimate relatedness and relevancy between the whole and the parts, from general to particular.

For the sake of deploying such a vision withouth causing a destructive domino effect uopn the present economic forces that are trapped in the past, I invented the word "Flowcalization", made of Focal-local-flowing. It is a word that defines the "radiation" of intelligence from inner justice and peace as opposed to its "militant" structures of command and control and of restrictive peer pressure. It moves from personal maturing to communal relevance, from local growth to global bloom and from micro social-culture to macro econo-political deployment."

...may all blessings be with us all...
Benoit