You will never know my best intentions...

The mind has a great talent for running with ideas which are not true. Our creativity is not bounded by facts, and even if it were, we are left with the problem that most ‘facts’ as we know them are incomplete or simply a perception of the fact.

In language and communication, these issues are at the forefront. The person who communicates will suffer an issue of how to best use language to make clear the intent of their point, whilst the person who receives the information must interpret from the language what the point and intentions were. This issue is further exacerbated by the inability of people to communicate directly, such as the example “look at the time…” rather than “please can you leave.” And even in this example, the intention of ‘please can you leave’ is open – “please can you leave, I am tired and need to sleep” or “please can you leave, I am offended by your presence.” These are not issues we face with the man in the street in general chit chat, but are issues which can cause great pain when dealing with people we have, or hope to have, emotional connection to. 

The mere act of communication can itself create this unfortunate dynamic. Say, you hear that an ex-lover has received some very positive news, and you wish to congratulate them from the position of an old acquaintance. The ex-lover might receive any communication as some attempt to re-kindle an old romance, and scoff at the mere thought of it. In this case, the two participants are playing very different games, but neither knows which game the other is playing. And this strikes me as being an interesting point, the position with which we operate from in these communicative relationships.

We are always looking to assume the intentions of others whenever they communicate with us, both verbally and non-verbally. We take a combination of the words they have chosen to use and our own historical data to form some conclusion of intent. We are detectives, but we are only capable of detecting that which confirms our assumptions. This is because we are biased. We are biased by our previous life experiences, we are biased through the media we have witnessed, and we are biased by our moods and circumstances.

And what of the person attempting to communicate? They have some initial want, an initial intent for the communication. Often this initial intent is diluted, it is softened and given an exit strategy – an alternative intent is woven into the narrative as back-up in case the initial intent fails completely. And then there is the manner with which these intents are coded into the language which the person chooses to use. This is why communication can be such a challenge.

For those with an anxious mind, the problem is worsened. An anxious mind is all to happy to offer ideas about intentions, or to create a panic to communicate in haste before we even have a chance to understand our own intentions.

The lessons that we should take are varied. We should not expect automatically that others will understand our words as we intend. We should not expect that we have the ability to offer words with precision in aid of our cause. I believe that we should also consider that the roles we take are mutable, that where in one instance we would be inclined to see the words of another as one thing, in the future this may not be the case. However, we should not put any reliance on others to change so that they understand out intentions better. We might hope, but we can have no expectations.

Fundamentally, the idea of perfect communication is impossible. We can have extended periods of good communication with individuals, but it will never be perfect. The requirements for perfect communication are that both parties are able to implicitly understand the intentions of the other, and use the same language, and coding of intentions within that language, to share ideas, thoughts and feelings freely.

You might take this text for example. You might read that my intention is to teach and share knowledge, rather it is actually a tool for me to understand these philosophical points myself more clearly. It is written first as discovery, and published second as teaching.