"It’s fascinating, and disheartening, to consider how different, even oppositional, people’s information bubbles are, and how impossible to reach any kind of shared understanding if one’s own comprehension of reality is completely different than another’s.
But there is power, too, in spending time with that difference. I don’t just mean for empathy and understanding, though there is that. I mean for clarity and where to focus one’s energies."
I've been thinking lately about the same problem. My hunch is we'd all be better communicators if every discussion were an agreed-upon effort to uncover one another's dissonance and bias, and only then, together think in search of some agreement.
I suppose there are people who do that kind of thing in organized, intentional groups, which doesn't seem like a bad activity to be engaged it. Does it ripple out? I'd be interested to hear.
One thing I'm not sure bubbles up much is how difficult it is to find people who listen to others. It's a surprisingly difficult skill to cultivate, it seems, but even more difficult to make headway without it.
So many ideas packed into this post! I've noted down the book you've mentioned as one I want to read. Understanding and communication and different frames of mind and world view is such a big topic area. I have to remind myself of my own view and knowledge versus that of who I'm talking to quite a lot especially at work, it really helps but it can be so difficult.
So good to read everyone else's comments as well - always inspiring and more things that resonate too! Ah, and I love the use of the word Umwelt is used by scientists and philosophers across the world. I always struggle to find a word that fits quite as well as environment is somehow just not getting it quite on the same level/depth (thought it's probably influenced by my language and cultural background too - I'm German).
Thank you so much for including the audio recordings of too and adding them in separate little files :-) Loved those.
Thank you, Barbara! And if you end up reading it, I'd be curious to know what you think. It's a book I came across when I was deep-diving into the "crisis of meaning" podcast sphere a few years ago -- a space I mostly found aggravating but still also full of thought-provoking ideas. I think it was Daniel Schmachtenberger who mentioned the book but it could have been someone else.
I'm sure you've run into this plenty, but in English we're always saying, "I wish there were a word for ... [some complicated or big idea concept, or one with philosophical depth and meaning]" followed by "There's probably a word in German for it."
(I lived in Vienna, Austria, for a year back in the 1990s and, though I remember very little German now, loved learning the language intensively for a bit. There is something so satisfying about German, like it manages to acknowledge the confusion of existence without getting lost in it.)
I'm glad you like the audio recordings! It's a challenge, but I like to try to find ways of sharing the feel of Montana when I can.
When I taught technical writing, my final exam involved writing directions on how to use a can opener. I forget where I got the idea, but it involved principles similar to what you so eloquently outline here, communication as empathy. Thank you!
I read it with the lens of: how can you argue with someone you disagree with on the basis of humanity for a people, if you don’t know if those people cross the threshold of humanity of that person.. You brought in women, and I think of Palestinian women, how many levels of dehumanization and subhumanization they have to overcome in order for an ethnonationalist Christian to actually recognize their humanity.. This is making me think hard Tonia and it’s not even 9am..
My hard thinking only happens before my kids get up 😂 After that I'm too frazzled!
Yes, absolutely. I'm not sure if a true enthonationalist Christian is capable of seeing that humanity. That's the really hard sticking point that can often frustrate me about large-stage national and international discourse: there are people with whom compromise isn't possible.
Or as Robert Jones Jr. once wrote (almost always wrongly attributed to James Baldwin, though it does sound like something he would have said): “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
At the other end of the 'otpimism' spectrum: if Marjorie Taylor-Green can say it's a Genocide, anything can happen to the hearts of humans. As not-funny as this sounds...
Trying to communicate with those still fully enthralled with modernity, with empire, feels exactly like that. I have a persistent urge to run into what's left of the wild just for peace of mind.
I'm glad for the shelter of your words. As much as I wish to reach others as the madness roars, maybe this kindred sanctuary is all we get. Maybe I'm just exhausted, having exposed myself to too much in attempt to contain and anticipate.
Much can be understood by studying the games a particular culture plays. I wish we weren't captured by one where the point of playing them is either to win, or lose. Life is not a game, but that hasn't stopped us from trying to beat it.
On lighter notes, I have family in Chico. And math and I are not friendly. I like my earl grey hot.
I always love meeting minds with people who know those episodes!
"Trying to communicate with those still fully enthralled with modernity, with empire, feels exactly like that." --> Yes, exactly that. And that description of the words as shelter is very kind, than you. I wish more generous shelter for you, though. Places with trees and running water and kindness. For some reason your comment reminds me of a short film I saw years and years ago, I think when I briefly had a subscription to the Criterion Collection classics (so I could watch "Andrei Rublev" with my dad). It was placed in Japan, and was just a day in a simple, nature-filled village life of the kind I'm sure many of us dream of. I wish I could remember the name of it.
Also: "Life is not a game, but that hasn't stopped us from trying to beat it." Oof. No kidding.
I am fond of Chico, though I can barely say I lived there. It was such a different life from what I'd come from. But it is, also, the first place I had television service on a daily basis and so is where I in fact started watching Star Trek, original series on a tiny black and white TV (I sound so much older even than I am 😂) -- and where my family went to a pizza parlor when they hosted an "Encounter at Farpoint" showing when it first came out.
Early grey: also hot. I used to take it with a touch of milk but now plain :)
I'm not sure what role each of us has in the greater scheme of humanity, and I worry about the very real algorithmic siloing of thoughts and expression that is made to feel like sanctuary when its actually a prison. Camaraderie is vital, but what of reaching the legion of others still enraptured by a destructive perception antithetical to our grounded vision and warning? It seems an insular strategy for control: Give them what they want to funnel and contain like-types as a method of intellectual/ideological quarantine and manipulation.
For me, to read someone that sees the world as I see it, that embodies the same care in their observations, that keeps trying to find new ways of expressing the peril and the pain of our times, is a reminder that even though I may be part of what seems like at times a solitary worldview is in fact not. And that is a soul-deep relief. But comfort is not where the work lies, not where the edge of change contaminates the static and unyielding.
I do not believe true revolution is a planned event. Where force is used to achieve ends is always just power exchanging who wields it and the curse remains unbroken. It is a constant challenge not to pick up the sword. Is singing enough? I do not know. Some may call it a strategy of "faith" or "hope" or "resilience." These don't seem adequate descriptors for what to me feels like the intersection of surrender and steely defiance and omnigrief and primeval instinct.
Your words, for me, are less enlightenment (I am already the choir) and more a sheltering touchstone. I rest, I remember, and then I go back into the fray.
Are we reaching those who desperately need to hear us? Is the internet and social media the best method? It feels more a customized trap with each passing day.
I like this Stephen King quote from his Dark Tower series, not as a literal reference of action, but in the spirit of it: “Control the things you can control, maggot. Let everything else take a flying fuck at you and if you must go down, go down with your guns blazing.”
"Where force is used to achieve ends is always just power exchanging who wields it and the curse remains unbroken." --> WHEW. So few people understand this. Even Aristotle, who wasn't exactly averse to power, saw that revolution tended to repackage the same dynamics in different people and/or ideologies.
"A sheltering touchstone" is such a beautiful phrase and one of the best compliments I've ever received, thank you! Maybe that's what I'm trying to do, even when a hope for change is hard to avoid.
And cheers to the Stephen King quote! I've only read a few of his books and not that series (last one I read was Lisey's Story and it reminded me why I tend to avoid his books -- incredible writing and storytelling, and also fodder for nightmares for a lifetime; I still have trouble walking by a mirror at night after that book).
Such a powerful essay, Antonia, with a huge hinterland of thought and experience attached to it. THere's so much to refeclt on here. One of the lines that struck me most was, "the only game worth winning is the one that enables life to keep living." Indeed.
Cheers, Jeffrey ☺️ I appreciate you reading, and yeah, that is in fact a reminder I am needing more and more myself these days, which games are worth winning, or even worth playing.
You can’t teach someone how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if you don’t know how concepts like “peanut butter” or “sandwich” appear in their own minds.
Golly. So many thoughts. The communication thing when there is no shared frame of reference -and no understanding that this is so (i.e. of course women are sub-human and land is made to be owned and dominated -- duh), strikes home in a big way, living as I now do in a similar small town just over the mountains from you.
It also strikes home because I now spend a lot of time with a two year old and need to adjust myself to her frame of reference as well. What things has she simply never encountered, and how to leave plenty of room for her point of view?
Mostly though, I adored sitting quietly and knitting while listening to the sound clips at the beginning and end. What a delicious way to create a container within which a person can really focus, absorb, and quietly think. Thank you for that, as for everything you do.
Sarah, I had seen that you moved but somehow missed that -- if I'm reading this right? -- you're back in this part of the country?! I hope Beryl is loving all the new smells wherever it is she gets to roam :)
Holy goodness, yeah, I hadn't even thought of it while writing this but spending a lot of time with children where they're at the age of learning to talk and walk at about the same time is pretty mind-blowing. I remember once watching my son, somewhere over a year old, pass his hand back and forth through a shaft of sunlight coming into the room. It was one of those moments and grounded me back into the magic of life.
Thank you for listening! That's exactly what I hope when I'm able to include those clips -- that they give a small container of a few minutes of space and peace. (I wish I would have described where I was in a few words first, though. Hindsight, 20/20, etc.)
Yes! I now live in Sandpoint, so just "over the hills" from you. I moved here to be closer (ten blocks so a nice little walk) from my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter who is an utter joy--a shaft of sunlight herself-- and a steady reminder of amazingness of the world. Lucky me.
So close! I'll have to swing by sometime. Haven't been to Sandpoint in a few years. And how lovely to be close to your granddaughter! Truly a shaft of sunlight, few better ☀️
Thank you as always, Nia. ❤️ It is challenging when we interact with folks who may live in our same community but for myriad reasons inhabit a totally different universe.
Antonia!! What a beautiful post. I especially love authors who record. Apparently Pappy knows brother Coyote because he jumped out of his sleep and lifted his head to howl when I played your audio. I couldn’t convince him that he was safe so I will catch the recording later.
I’ve been thinking about umwelt lately as I try to figure out how the umwelt of rare species like the Appalachian cottontail were affected by Hurricane Helene. It seems that umwelt is individual and yet tells us something about how to interact with another species. Your writing made me think about how often we misunderstood another being because we are in our own bubble. (Or we let spellcheck get away with changing what we really meant to say.)
I appreciate how you describe your precision with language. And your local strategy!🫶🏼
"It seems that umwelt is individual and yet tells us something about how to interact with another species." --> that seems absolutely key, and a large part of what writers like you and many others trying to work on, that crossing over into understanding from perspectives we might not be used to.
I think a lot about the word for "to go" in Russian, which is actually many, many words, because there's a different between going on foot versus going via other modes, and it matters whether you're going to somewhere, to and from, around or through ... there are pages and pages of verbs for it, and it always stumps me because I think you have to know exactly what it is you're intending to do before you can even form a sentence, much less do the thing, in ways that English doesn't have.
Language is endlessly fascinating and tells us so much about how we view the world, but it's hard to step outside of it for said viewing.
(BTW, do you know the poet Nickole Brown? I was in a nature writing poetry class with her last fall, though she's at a level where I wondered why she wasn't teaching a class rather than taking one! She was writing poems about Helene, and had one about Crows and storms that sticks with me. This is her, if you don't know her work: https://www.nickolebrown.org/poems)
Nia, this is wonderful. So much here that resonates. I have a habit of relating elements of posts to my own experience. Some neurotypical people might see that as "making it about me", but it's really how some us of let a writer or speaker know that we see them and that we feel seen. Anyway ...
Writing computer training manuals was a lot like writing instructions for PB&J. How much can you assume the student knows? One student, when I asked the class to point at something with the mouse, picked it up at pointed it at the monitor like a TV remote - their frame of reference.
Dutch is a very idiomatic language. My colleagues and I used to amuse ourselves in meetings with our US overlords by speaking in literal English translations of Dutch idioms as a counterpoint to "the whole nine yards" and "behind the eight ball." Needless to say, we loved "Darmok."
And computer programming is another language with its own idioms and limited frame of reference. A project I'd love to make time for is a hermit crab essay in the form of a computer program, or even an instruction manual!
You make an important point so well. I find it really challenging to explain my thoughts in terms of the current cultural frame of reference, so much of which is built on myth anyway. It's like sitting on the branch you're trying to saw off!
John, I don't know what one would call it but I always hope that people are able to relate elements of my writing to their own experiences! To me, it's the only way to shift and change perspectives, is to find ways to meet people where they are, to try to write stories that people can see their own experiences in.
YES to writing computer training manuals being similar. It's a really interesting way to think, and harder than most people realize. I run into this in my work copy editing textbooks quite often -- explaining to the publisher that the way they're presenting a problem or a lesson won't make sense to, say, a 9-year-old. Or kindergartner. (Since I am always an outside contractor, I don't get a lot of power to make real change on those fronts, sadly.)
I would totally read a hermit crab essay in the form of a computer program. That would be such an interesting experiment -- maybe with Dutch idioms!
And I *totally* hear you on the difficulty of explaining in terms of current cultural frames of reference. Sitting on a branch you're trying to saw off is a good comparison. One little unpacking of meaning at a time ... (to mix metaphors)
"It’s fascinating, and disheartening, to consider how different, even oppositional, people’s information bubbles are, and how impossible to reach any kind of shared understanding if one’s own comprehension of reality is completely different than another’s.
But there is power, too, in spending time with that difference. I don’t just mean for empathy and understanding, though there is that. I mean for clarity and where to focus one’s energies."
I've been thinking lately about the same problem. My hunch is we'd all be better communicators if every discussion were an agreed-upon effort to uncover one another's dissonance and bias, and only then, together think in search of some agreement.
Ah, never mind too much work, I guess!
I suppose there are people who do that kind of thing in organized, intentional groups, which doesn't seem like a bad activity to be engaged it. Does it ripple out? I'd be interested to hear.
One thing I'm not sure bubbles up much is how difficult it is to find people who listen to others. It's a surprisingly difficult skill to cultivate, it seems, but even more difficult to make headway without it.
Well, we both live in Montana, and we both know there is plenty of opportunity to test drive some discussions. 😊
lol!
I visited my older sister in Santa Cruz, CA, last summer, and it was a kind of psychological whiplash remember what a true liberal bubble feels like!
We need an underground railroad!!!
That's what some of my other friends here in the Flathead are saying!
So many ideas packed into this post! I've noted down the book you've mentioned as one I want to read. Understanding and communication and different frames of mind and world view is such a big topic area. I have to remind myself of my own view and knowledge versus that of who I'm talking to quite a lot especially at work, it really helps but it can be so difficult.
So good to read everyone else's comments as well - always inspiring and more things that resonate too! Ah, and I love the use of the word Umwelt is used by scientists and philosophers across the world. I always struggle to find a word that fits quite as well as environment is somehow just not getting it quite on the same level/depth (thought it's probably influenced by my language and cultural background too - I'm German).
Thank you so much for including the audio recordings of too and adding them in separate little files :-) Loved those.
Thank you, Barbara! And if you end up reading it, I'd be curious to know what you think. It's a book I came across when I was deep-diving into the "crisis of meaning" podcast sphere a few years ago -- a space I mostly found aggravating but still also full of thought-provoking ideas. I think it was Daniel Schmachtenberger who mentioned the book but it could have been someone else.
I'm sure you've run into this plenty, but in English we're always saying, "I wish there were a word for ... [some complicated or big idea concept, or one with philosophical depth and meaning]" followed by "There's probably a word in German for it."
(I lived in Vienna, Austria, for a year back in the 1990s and, though I remember very little German now, loved learning the language intensively for a bit. There is something so satisfying about German, like it manages to acknowledge the confusion of existence without getting lost in it.)
I'm glad you like the audio recordings! It's a challenge, but I like to try to find ways of sharing the feel of Montana when I can.
When I taught technical writing, my final exam involved writing directions on how to use a can opener. I forget where I got the idea, but it involved principles similar to what you so eloquently outline here, communication as empathy. Thank you!
Exactly! I'd love to know the inventive ways your students tackled that problem :)
I read it with the lens of: how can you argue with someone you disagree with on the basis of humanity for a people, if you don’t know if those people cross the threshold of humanity of that person.. You brought in women, and I think of Palestinian women, how many levels of dehumanization and subhumanization they have to overcome in order for an ethnonationalist Christian to actually recognize their humanity.. This is making me think hard Tonia and it’s not even 9am..
My hard thinking only happens before my kids get up 😂 After that I'm too frazzled!
Yes, absolutely. I'm not sure if a true enthonationalist Christian is capable of seeing that humanity. That's the really hard sticking point that can often frustrate me about large-stage national and international discourse: there are people with whom compromise isn't possible.
Or as Robert Jones Jr. once wrote (almost always wrongly attributed to James Baldwin, though it does sound like something he would have said): “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
At the other end of the 'otpimism' spectrum: if Marjorie Taylor-Green can say it's a Genocide, anything can happen to the hearts of humans. As not-funny as this sounds...
It's truth.
"Shaka, when the walls fell."
Trying to communicate with those still fully enthralled with modernity, with empire, feels exactly like that. I have a persistent urge to run into what's left of the wild just for peace of mind.
I'm glad for the shelter of your words. As much as I wish to reach others as the madness roars, maybe this kindred sanctuary is all we get. Maybe I'm just exhausted, having exposed myself to too much in attempt to contain and anticipate.
Much can be understood by studying the games a particular culture plays. I wish we weren't captured by one where the point of playing them is either to win, or lose. Life is not a game, but that hasn't stopped us from trying to beat it.
On lighter notes, I have family in Chico. And math and I are not friendly. I like my earl grey hot.
I always love meeting minds with people who know those episodes!
"Trying to communicate with those still fully enthralled with modernity, with empire, feels exactly like that." --> Yes, exactly that. And that description of the words as shelter is very kind, than you. I wish more generous shelter for you, though. Places with trees and running water and kindness. For some reason your comment reminds me of a short film I saw years and years ago, I think when I briefly had a subscription to the Criterion Collection classics (so I could watch "Andrei Rublev" with my dad). It was placed in Japan, and was just a day in a simple, nature-filled village life of the kind I'm sure many of us dream of. I wish I could remember the name of it.
Also: "Life is not a game, but that hasn't stopped us from trying to beat it." Oof. No kidding.
I am fond of Chico, though I can barely say I lived there. It was such a different life from what I'd come from. But it is, also, the first place I had television service on a daily basis and so is where I in fact started watching Star Trek, original series on a tiny black and white TV (I sound so much older even than I am 😂) -- and where my family went to a pizza parlor when they hosted an "Encounter at Farpoint" showing when it first came out.
Early grey: also hot. I used to take it with a touch of milk but now plain :)
I'm not sure what role each of us has in the greater scheme of humanity, and I worry about the very real algorithmic siloing of thoughts and expression that is made to feel like sanctuary when its actually a prison. Camaraderie is vital, but what of reaching the legion of others still enraptured by a destructive perception antithetical to our grounded vision and warning? It seems an insular strategy for control: Give them what they want to funnel and contain like-types as a method of intellectual/ideological quarantine and manipulation.
For me, to read someone that sees the world as I see it, that embodies the same care in their observations, that keeps trying to find new ways of expressing the peril and the pain of our times, is a reminder that even though I may be part of what seems like at times a solitary worldview is in fact not. And that is a soul-deep relief. But comfort is not where the work lies, not where the edge of change contaminates the static and unyielding.
I do not believe true revolution is a planned event. Where force is used to achieve ends is always just power exchanging who wields it and the curse remains unbroken. It is a constant challenge not to pick up the sword. Is singing enough? I do not know. Some may call it a strategy of "faith" or "hope" or "resilience." These don't seem adequate descriptors for what to me feels like the intersection of surrender and steely defiance and omnigrief and primeval instinct.
Your words, for me, are less enlightenment (I am already the choir) and more a sheltering touchstone. I rest, I remember, and then I go back into the fray.
Are we reaching those who desperately need to hear us? Is the internet and social media the best method? It feels more a customized trap with each passing day.
I like this Stephen King quote from his Dark Tower series, not as a literal reference of action, but in the spirit of it: “Control the things you can control, maggot. Let everything else take a flying fuck at you and if you must go down, go down with your guns blazing.”
In defense and care for the sacred,
❤️
"Where force is used to achieve ends is always just power exchanging who wields it and the curse remains unbroken." --> WHEW. So few people understand this. Even Aristotle, who wasn't exactly averse to power, saw that revolution tended to repackage the same dynamics in different people and/or ideologies.
"A sheltering touchstone" is such a beautiful phrase and one of the best compliments I've ever received, thank you! Maybe that's what I'm trying to do, even when a hope for change is hard to avoid.
And cheers to the Stephen King quote! I've only read a few of his books and not that series (last one I read was Lisey's Story and it reminded me why I tend to avoid his books -- incredible writing and storytelling, and also fodder for nightmares for a lifetime; I still have trouble walking by a mirror at night after that book).
In solidarity back to you!
Such a powerful essay, Antonia, with a huge hinterland of thought and experience attached to it. THere's so much to refeclt on here. One of the lines that struck me most was, "the only game worth winning is the one that enables life to keep living." Indeed.
Cheers, Jeffrey ☺️ I appreciate you reading, and yeah, that is in fact a reminder I am needing more and more myself these days, which games are worth winning, or even worth playing.
Brilliant:
You can’t teach someone how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if you don’t know how concepts like “peanut butter” or “sandwich” appear in their own minds.
Likewise “freedom,” or “humanity.”
Thank you, Keir!
Golly. So many thoughts. The communication thing when there is no shared frame of reference -and no understanding that this is so (i.e. of course women are sub-human and land is made to be owned and dominated -- duh), strikes home in a big way, living as I now do in a similar small town just over the mountains from you.
It also strikes home because I now spend a lot of time with a two year old and need to adjust myself to her frame of reference as well. What things has she simply never encountered, and how to leave plenty of room for her point of view?
Mostly though, I adored sitting quietly and knitting while listening to the sound clips at the beginning and end. What a delicious way to create a container within which a person can really focus, absorb, and quietly think. Thank you for that, as for everything you do.
Sarah, I had seen that you moved but somehow missed that -- if I'm reading this right? -- you're back in this part of the country?! I hope Beryl is loving all the new smells wherever it is she gets to roam :)
Holy goodness, yeah, I hadn't even thought of it while writing this but spending a lot of time with children where they're at the age of learning to talk and walk at about the same time is pretty mind-blowing. I remember once watching my son, somewhere over a year old, pass his hand back and forth through a shaft of sunlight coming into the room. It was one of those moments and grounded me back into the magic of life.
Thank you for listening! That's exactly what I hope when I'm able to include those clips -- that they give a small container of a few minutes of space and peace. (I wish I would have described where I was in a few words first, though. Hindsight, 20/20, etc.)
Yes! I now live in Sandpoint, so just "over the hills" from you. I moved here to be closer (ten blocks so a nice little walk) from my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter who is an utter joy--a shaft of sunlight herself-- and a steady reminder of amazingness of the world. Lucky me.
But I think I will need a new shovel...
So close! I'll have to swing by sometime. Haven't been to Sandpoint in a few years. And how lovely to be close to your granddaughter! Truly a shaft of sunlight, few better ☀️
Wonderful as ever. Thank you for bringing this to us, Nia! Deeply honoured by the shoutout, thank you! 🙏🌱
Thank you for the inspiration, Lorraine! And the continued space to practice change in small steps ...
Thank you as always, Nia. ❤️ It is challenging when we interact with folks who may live in our same community but for myriad reasons inhabit a totally different universe.
Absolutely, Greg! And you and I both live in regions where that is a daily reality. 🧡
Antonia!! What a beautiful post. I especially love authors who record. Apparently Pappy knows brother Coyote because he jumped out of his sleep and lifted his head to howl when I played your audio. I couldn’t convince him that he was safe so I will catch the recording later.
I’ve been thinking about umwelt lately as I try to figure out how the umwelt of rare species like the Appalachian cottontail were affected by Hurricane Helene. It seems that umwelt is individual and yet tells us something about how to interact with another species. Your writing made me think about how often we misunderstood another being because we are in our own bubble. (Or we let spellcheck get away with changing what we really meant to say.)
I appreciate how you describe your precision with language. And your local strategy!🫶🏼
Maybe Pappy will like the goats a bit better! 😂
"It seems that umwelt is individual and yet tells us something about how to interact with another species." --> that seems absolutely key, and a large part of what writers like you and many others trying to work on, that crossing over into understanding from perspectives we might not be used to.
I think a lot about the word for "to go" in Russian, which is actually many, many words, because there's a different between going on foot versus going via other modes, and it matters whether you're going to somewhere, to and from, around or through ... there are pages and pages of verbs for it, and it always stumps me because I think you have to know exactly what it is you're intending to do before you can even form a sentence, much less do the thing, in ways that English doesn't have.
Language is endlessly fascinating and tells us so much about how we view the world, but it's hard to step outside of it for said viewing.
(BTW, do you know the poet Nickole Brown? I was in a nature writing poetry class with her last fall, though she's at a level where I wondered why she wasn't teaching a class rather than taking one! She was writing poems about Helene, and had one about Crows and storms that sticks with me. This is her, if you don't know her work: https://www.nickolebrown.org/poems)
Nia, this is wonderful. So much here that resonates. I have a habit of relating elements of posts to my own experience. Some neurotypical people might see that as "making it about me", but it's really how some us of let a writer or speaker know that we see them and that we feel seen. Anyway ...
Writing computer training manuals was a lot like writing instructions for PB&J. How much can you assume the student knows? One student, when I asked the class to point at something with the mouse, picked it up at pointed it at the monitor like a TV remote - their frame of reference.
Dutch is a very idiomatic language. My colleagues and I used to amuse ourselves in meetings with our US overlords by speaking in literal English translations of Dutch idioms as a counterpoint to "the whole nine yards" and "behind the eight ball." Needless to say, we loved "Darmok."
And computer programming is another language with its own idioms and limited frame of reference. A project I'd love to make time for is a hermit crab essay in the form of a computer program, or even an instruction manual!
You make an important point so well. I find it really challenging to explain my thoughts in terms of the current cultural frame of reference, so much of which is built on myth anyway. It's like sitting on the branch you're trying to saw off!
John, I don't know what one would call it but I always hope that people are able to relate elements of my writing to their own experiences! To me, it's the only way to shift and change perspectives, is to find ways to meet people where they are, to try to write stories that people can see their own experiences in.
YES to writing computer training manuals being similar. It's a really interesting way to think, and harder than most people realize. I run into this in my work copy editing textbooks quite often -- explaining to the publisher that the way they're presenting a problem or a lesson won't make sense to, say, a 9-year-old. Or kindergartner. (Since I am always an outside contractor, I don't get a lot of power to make real change on those fronts, sadly.)
I would totally read a hermit crab essay in the form of a computer program. That would be such an interesting experiment -- maybe with Dutch idioms!
And I *totally* hear you on the difficulty of explaining in terms of current cultural frames of reference. Sitting on a branch you're trying to saw off is a good comparison. One little unpacking of meaning at a time ... (to mix metaphors)