Talking at levels

At an event the other day, each attendee was asked to introduce themself with their name and something that they’ve been working on in their free time. To my surprise, a good friend of mine responded with essentially “figuring out what the fuck I’m up to” when I tend to hold them as a role model of a life well understood and well lived. For myself, I was struggling to come up with something to relay that was both true and of interest; my continual, slow-burn job search didn’t really feel like something I was working on, so much as just something that happens; I’ve looked into starting projects and courses but haven’t yet; my Hindi isn’t far enough along for me to feel comfortable telling anyone about it… When it got to me, I said “communicating with others in a way that makes the information more accessible to them rather than just what makes sense to me.” I’m glad to be able to say that this is something I’m working on, but it comes, of course, with a big admission: I’m pretty shit at this in some pretty well-identified contexts.

The biggest environment in which I find this comes up is when I expect someone to know something or understand something and I find that they do not. The prime example is explaining a concept or process at work to two separate people: one who I don’t expect to understand it already, and one who I do. If I were not being immediately conscious of how I was communicating the information, the first individual would probably receive a gently building, ground-up explanation; I try not to make assumptions about background knowledge, and someone I don’t know or that I know likely has not have been exposed to the underlying concepts will usually receive a great deal of background knowledge unless they tell me to hurry to the point. The second person would probably, by default, get a pretty quick, direct summary of the topic, and I would expect them to be able to raise any critical questions themself without much for prompting or assistance. Now, although neither of these styles is perfect, they both can convey the information effectively to an appropriate audience.

Though I can’t assert that it’s the case without verification from the outside, I do believe I have at least the ability to communicate in a way that is targeted at what is appropriate for the context, even if I don’t always have the sense to do so in every situation. But, this does change our posed problem a bit: if I’m capable of adjusting my communication style for the audience, what’s the issue? It could be a case of whether or not my default approach is best. This is something I’ve worked to adjust already (starting from a learning approach more often) but if the focus is individualization, then trading one default mode for another doesn’t seem like an appropriate solution. I believe that it has most to do with my own satisfaction with the given situation; essentially, if I don’t feel good about how I’m communicating (e.g. frustration at needing to switch when I expected to convey information one way) then I’m probably not going to communicate as effectively. The point to work on now becomes how, in each of these situations can I foster a sense of satisfaction with whatever is there: an opportunity to teach, learn, or simply discuss something with another person.

When, through whatever random heuristic I use, I recognize that I’m working with a learning audience as opposed to an audience that I imagine is already at-level, I can make a non-trivial effort to teach to their level. I believe the experiences I’ve had in classroom instruction have built a good foundation for this, and it’s seemed (through assessments and reviews) that this has been effective, so I have reason to believe that this would translate into these situations. Beyond that, I genuinely enjoy teaching; I would do it as much or more than I work, if I could. This personal appreciation for that act and process (regardless of whatever skill level I actually have) makes it all the more confusing that I become as frustrated and short as I do when I realize that I need to do this in some other context. It’s clear that the actual act or acts I am required to perform (slowing down explanations, reinforcing concepts, rephrasing for additional clarity, etc.) are not at all objectionable to me, and can come with great joy. From all of this, I can draw a pretty convincing (to me, at least) conclusion that my own mindset that causes this discomfort rather than the other primary factors involved, such as with whom I’m communicating, what their needs are, or what I would do to better meet those needs.

In setting the scene, I described the context in which this comes up: when I expect someone to know something or understand something and I find that they do not. It might be obvious to others at that point even that the issue is on the side of the expectation, not the reality of the situation. The expectation remaining unmet creates an instance of desire for the situation at hand to be different; the solution to the core of that is to remove the expectation, avoid that desire for some imaginary other, and embrace the opportunity to do good now, in the very instance of this occurring. Though a social interaction, and superficially a social problem, as it stems from communication, it is a problem that can be solved most directly on one side, and entirely without changing the situation. This kind of momentary recognition and adjustment of course is difficult, or at least I like to think so in order to explain why I cannot do it all the time. The only place it can be practiced is in the moment, but there are still, of course, things we can do to practice being conscious of the moment at hand in a way that makes us more agile in navigating these kinds of momentary occurrences. That, however, is a bit beyond the scope of a post about how I get pissy for no good reason when I talk to people sometimes.