Sans Fig Leaf
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"You understand, right?"
2 February, 2008
A friend of mine asked me
to look at something she had written, because another friend to whom
she had shown it hadn't understood it. When she told me who the friend
was, I knew where part of the problem arose. The opening line quoted a
lyric from a song that had been a big hit. But it had been a hit before
the other friend had been born.
"You can't expect everyone
to recognize lyrics from something that long ago," I said.
Not a year later, I made
an allusion in conversation to a movie, and was surprised when the same
friend wasn't familiar with the film. Of course, it was from many years
ago, when the friend was a small child. The movie in question
hadn't even been a hit. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.
Most of us make
assumptions like that all the time. Particularly if we consider the
person a friend. Because we already have a certain amount experience
and opinions in common, it's easy to assume that other topics will
similarly harmonize.
Since we're usually not
aware when we are making these assumptions, we have no idea whether
we're communicating what we mean at any time. Similarly, we may think
we understand another person very well, only to discover later that we
were completely mistaken.
Even when the experiences
literally are the same, our perspectives and temperaments shape our
perceptions. How many times
have you had a
conversation with co-workers, or family members, or a group of friends
who all experienced something together, but afterwards can't agree on
exactly what happened? If
you think about it too hard, you begin to marvel that we can ever
communicate anything at all.
It would be easy, after
recalling several examples of miscommunication and hurt feelings (or
worse), to come to a rather cynical view of human relations in general,
and communication in particular. But looking at things the easy way is
for lazy thinkers. Instead, I believe one should, when marvelling at
how difficult communication is, stop at the word "marvel" for a moment.
Think about what that phrase means.
That we can communicate at
all is
marvelous--and more! It's wondrous and exciting, and full of
unforeseeable possibilities!
It's so easy to get hung
up on miscommunications and misunderstandings, that we don't even
notice all the other times when we did understand the other person. Or
they understood us. The successes aren't all profound meetings of
minds, but that doesn't make them worthless. If you were starving, but
successfully asked for and received food, for instance, you'd consider
that a worthwhile accomplishment, right?
I'm not saying that we
shouldn't strive to do a better job of understanding each other. We
should always try to be better people and make improvements to the
world around us, in ways both large and small. But it's also okay, from
time to time, to acknowledge that some things are working rather well.
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
--Groucho Marx
.