The word game
The endless challenge of communication and the pursuit of better writing (or 'Veronika's Wittgenstein moment')
Preface/ Context
I have been thinking of embracing this as a serious personal challenge: to write one blog post every week. Difficult though it is, to keep this up when I am doing a thousand and one thing—I have to stick with it, because that consistency is what it takes to develop any skill to any degree of competence.
I am writing this on Friday night, after a long and exhausting work week of an architect working in Tokyo on a design of a couple projects in the US (read: we are working around the clock, with only a few hours to sleep and eat, due to the time difference between Japan and the US, amplified by the fast paced American work culture and the ‘long hours-work hard’ Japanese working culture).
The exhaustion comes from the fast pace of this particular work environment—many meetings in a day (online and in-person), and in-between you also need to find the time to answer the emails, schedule more meetings, think about the actual design, make 3D models, renders, construction drawings, transfer the knowledge to new interns, and chit chat with your colleagues... the list goes on.
Just a couple of years ago I would transition to drawing after a long day like this—to nurture the creative side of me, and thus to heal emotionally through art.
Today I am transitioning into writing, as I am sitting at my desk at 10 pm, Japan Standard Time.
In the intro post called ‘On Starting a Blog’ I briefly spoke about my motivation to develop writing ability. (And no, this does not mean I am abandoning drawing or other creative pursuits—I am just aiming to develop writing in addition to that).
So, why writing?
I will go straight to the answer.
Because writing is the basis for:
1. thinking
and
2. communication
When I want to send an important text to someone, I first write and organize what it is I am trying to say. That process in itself develops better thinking: as I write and rewrite, I search for the most fitting words to communicate precisely that which I had in my mind only vaguely.
Then, I communicate these thoughts to someone.
In this case—through writing. Some other time, I might do it through speaking.
Communication is important. Communication is the key. I sometimes get very honestly and deeply worried when I realize how large the gap between the “interiors” of our heads is—the weird result of our ever-evolving consciousness.
Let me give you an example to illustrate how important communication can be.
As I am my own best example for 'lessons learned', this will be a personal example.
I wasted a lot of time (and most likely many professional opportunities) because I expected people to see what I am capable of, without me having to tell them. I usually pay careful attention to people around me and get a picture of what they are like fairly quickly. They don’t need to ‘sell’ themselves to me, for me to understand their abilities, skills etc. For some mysterious reason, I was expecting people to apply a similar vision to me. I expected (naively) that people would see what I am worth without me having to tell them that. That, needless to say, never happened (except for a few special instances and people, which I am grateful for).
I suppose I have been living through Wittgenstein's experience (referring to the brilliant philosopher who himself had troubles with communication, and through that experience made an important discovery: we are all 'lost in translation'—the translation of the images and ideas we have in our mind to the minds of others through a poor choice of language).
Most often people don’t know who they are talking to, quite literally.
So you have to tell them.
Most of the world today (fortunately and unfortunately) is living within a free market paradigm. Within the free market world, people want to know as soon as possible what sort of leverage or information you hold that can be used for their advantage. If you don’t capture their attention in the first few seconds—they will move one and switch their attention to someone else.
In the world of free markets, those who hold power and money are the most valuable people. The rest is disregarded by those on the quest after the same things: money and power. So you have to constantly communicate in order to survive.
Elon Musk is so right when he says the bandwidth of our communication is very low. We can type only at a certain speed, so texting is painfully slow and inefficient. Speech is a bit better, but even with the speech—we have to use too many words ro transfer to people even a basic approximation of something that might be a clear idea in our mind. That causes a delay. If I have a sudden idea, I have to spend the time communicating it to you. No one else is going to truly believe in someone else's idea before it is communicated. This is when we can remember a phenomenon called 'misunderstood genius'.
What makes communication even more tricky is having to constantly be aware of your recipient's mindset and to alter (often in real time) what you say to them.
You have to always account for who you are speaking to: their background, breadth of knowledge, current position in life, and, very importantly—emotional state.
When you first meet a person and don't know these things—it can take quite a bit of time (and awkward exchanges) to get 'oriented' in their headspace.
I don't know what the solution to this is. Maybe that neuralink they are developing will be of help, or maybe we will all one day agree to carry a little bio, a synopsis about ourselves, which we can exchange when we meet someone new.
The communication capacities of the first one we don't yet fully know, and the second one is simply utopian, because who will write this synopsis in the first place? All of us are limited by the limits of our own vision, by our capacity to reflect back on ourselves.
In the meantime, I know that I can at least help the situation on my end—by developing my communication through working on my writing. In this case I will both help myself and others: I will be less frustrated from how frequently people misunderstand me, and the others will have just a bit less of the incoherent babbling to listen to.
I wish you all clarity in your lives and a nice week ahead.
Till the next time,
Veronika
I read this text on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee. While I was reading I was constantly thinking that writing is the best approach for me to organize my anxiety or kind of obsessive thoughts I don't really understand what they are about, or describe thoughts I struggle to wrap into words out loud.
Veronika, thanks for sharing your brilliant thoughts and making me reflect on my own.
🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻