Explanations
"You always say that,"
a friend told me when I began to decline trying to explain what I wanted to say on the grounds that I apparently hadn't figured out how to communicate it yet.
"Different things have different meanings to different people," I tried to say, "Finding good words seems like the difference between making oneself understood or being dismissed."
Even this didn't feel true enough.
I thought about this some more.
What feels most concerning to me is that I might make an effort to communicate that falls short. The hazard of this is not just lack of understanding, but that I would be partially understood - that I might communicate some truth, but not the whole truth. I might communicate just enough for the listener to believe that he has heard something, at which point he will complete what I failed to say with his own assumptions. He may mistake a few aspects for the whole story. Believing he understands, he may be more likely to act on inaccurate assumptions and less open to further information on the matter.
This will be even worse than if I had never said anything. Because, now the listener (and maybe myself as well) will mistakenly believe that he has understood. I think it is always harder to correct false understanding than to promote good understanding in the first place. Lack of knowledge might be ignorance, but a truth that falls short is a deception, however well-intentioned.
It sometimes seems better to decline comment and not to try, although I'm stubborn enough that I usually do despite the sense of impending doom.
My concern is that if the job cannot be thoroughly done, all I might achieve is to drive a pipe into a great subterranean well of assumptions which will, under natural pressures of assumptions and perceptions, spew obscuring (even if well-intentioned) crude which I will have to find a way to clean up if I want to attempt communicating anything further.
But, even after my precautions and training,
... in the course of my trying to make myself known, despite how hard I try, it seems to me that understanding often has very little to do with what words are being said.
It seems like things often come down to a sense of those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
I must do my best to acquire such ears.
2 comments:
Such observation and wisdom.
To me, communication is as much an art as it is a skill. Knowing what to say is one thing but knowing why you are saying it and what you want to convey add much more to the equation.
One of the things I’ve learned to do is pay attention to the response, interest and body language of the person I’m talking to. And I’ve learned how to adjust my efforts accordingly. I’ve experienced many times where people either didn’t understand me or didn’t care what I had to say. If someone wants to understand me they will, if not there isn’t much I can do and knowing when to trail off has saved me lots of time and air.
I have learned, through my profession, that it is best to be as straight forward and to the point as possible. Too many words can add “inaccurate” communication between the lines, the same as no or too little communication can. Of course this is the best approach when involving feelings and affairs of the heart however that kind of communication is going to involve more than just being able to say what is needed to be said.
I am a firm believer that the more you work at something the better you get. The more questions you seek answers to, the more you will learn. Keep it up, and give yourself time.
OT
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