The older neighbor who talks your ear off on the porch has lived through things you only read about. Listen longer.

Primary sources rarely look like primary sources. The man who holds you up on the way to the car has been inside the decade you had to write an essay about, and he will tell you what the air felt like if you give him twenty minutes. Impatience costs you the content. It also costs him the only conversation on offer that day.

Ask one real question this week and stay ten minutes longer than you intended. Start with what it was like, rather than what happened, and let the answer go wherever it goes.