interpersonal communication

i define interpersonal communication as that which is intended to share and/or discover the self and/or the other. it's hard.

i conceptualize communication as a reduction and reexpansion, a folding and unfolding, by two different conscious beings. when i decide to express a concept in words, my brain translates (i.e. reduces) from inexplicable stuff to a common tongue, and then the receiving brain translates from that common tongue to their own, self-contextualized inexplicable stuff. there is no way to verify to what degree the input and output of this process produces a shared understanding.

i've found a lot of peace in the acceptance of the simultaneous futility and neccessity of this form of communication. we can't stop communicating. we need to, and we need to try hard. in fact, we should try as hard to communicate as we are able.. while also overcoming the internalized expectation that the resulting understanding is that we're now thinking the same thing. that we now have the same understanding. we're not. we don't. we're thinking about the same concepts, through the uncountable filters applied by our brains. no one can truly know you except yourself, and even that task is a lifelong process. (this fact is either eternally depressing or immensely liberating. often things are both, depending on how you decide to look at it.)

this acceptance produces for me the belief that it's important to share without expecting a listener to fully internalize your view or understanding of a situation, or concept, or message. for the reasons mentioned in the analysis above, i don't think anyone is capable of internalizing the whole context you feel in your mind, as i don't think there's any way to communicate that in words.