Dissecting the Miracle of a Typical Conversational Exchange 

I have a great imagination. I suspect that you do too. When I am alone, I make things up that I can or do believe have minimal likelihood of actually being real or truthful. I spend just as much time discarding those thoughts as ludicrous or unacceptable, or incorporating them into my knowledge base, as I do in designing them as a monologue in the first place. The process looks like this: A thought comes up, sounds feasible, gets tried on and appreciated or not, by comparing it to whatever I already believe is real, and soon, either gets incorporated as true, or discarded as impossible or unacceptable. This ongoing, spiraling process seems to go on incessantly and to represent the use of the largest portion of my time when I am solitary and quiet with just myself. No words (usually) get said out loud in this entire process.

Everything changes when I am in a dialogue with other people. What I choose to say out loud is just a nearly randomly chosen thread picked from the multitude of thoughts or ideas that I might have chosen to speak about moments beforehand. This notion of discourse with another person is certainly one of the most exquisite exercises in the essence of being human, all things considered. In that act, there are so many moving parts that we shockingly tend to take for granted.

There is the thought, the decision to speak it, how it is internally organized and packaged with words/ideas to be compelling or captivating to a listener, all of which take place before the actual utterance begins. Moving all of this to vocality and then breathing a semblance of those words into the air space, all the while micro-adjusting to check (with sight and sound) the other for how it appears to be being received in real-time, is the next multi-dimensional challenge. We all are expected to do at least that, to just begin to say what we mean to say, the minimal aspect of speaking that each of us is expected to master in each interchange we have with another person. Deep kudos to the art of speaking.

But we have only just begun. Now it has to travel through the ether, either a few feet away when physically together, or into a pixelated box harboring a sound card of bits and bytes, that then translates the utterance into an invisible delivery system that may go anywhere around the world instantly, generally landing exactly where it was intended. Using technological space that is packed with the billions of others engaged in a similar process of interactions from far and wide, starting and ending in entirely different locations, it somehow rarely gets entangled with each other in the crowded space. How is that even done, I marvel?

But wait. The intended listener is now poised to receive this creatively crafted artisanal conversational snippet, and as the well-traveled noise lands directly into their ears, they then have to clear out their thoughts and ideas that they have been battling to subdue or integrate into their lives up until then and leave open a receptive space to receive it. They must interpret the computer-generated vibrations to words and care about the communication enough to make it a top-shelf priority to take into consideration all of the associated contextual factors so that the intended idea might find its rightful place in being comprehended and appreciated.

Once that gracious act of listening is applied, the process runs into countless moving parts again. In its reception, it is to be somehow honored and understood for some concept or idea close to what was initially intended to be delivered by the speaker and gracefully accepted as worthy of the time and energy expended to do just that.

Once processed, an appropriate response is then generated. Even a non-response or a hesitation is a response, but in most cases, moods and emotions, relational history, and perception of importance or levity are all taken into account instantly, and a decision of if and how to respond is immediately naturally undertaken. After going through the same clearing process above, but in reverse, that now obviously miraculous response is generated spontaneously and delivered, leaving that person entirely responsible, word for word for not only the content generated but also being held to account for any of its perceived implications or insinuations. To make matters even more difficult, the unsaid that accompanied that spoken statements might be seen as an even more accurate description of what was truly representative of what was unconsciously meant to be expressed. At the least, that is the accepted prevailing protocol of communication, especially in interactions between people who see themselves as plugged in and/or intuitive.

The return utterance is delivered and goes in reverse through the invisible and imperceptible crowded world of communication crosshairs, only to land back on the original speaker, so that the process of interchange can begin again between two people working hard to create some form of a unified intention or mutual exchange of ideas.

In this process, one can see that misunderstandings are not only possible but, likely ubiquitous, as the moving parts stacked upon each other make vocal interaction the greatest miracle available to all of humanity.

Maybe it is easier to just be in solitude, but at the end of the day, nothing is more rewarding than interacting with another person, such that the experience of being heard and understood resonates between the speaker and listener, who share both of these roles in the ultimate dance of human connection. It is a long arduous road, and well worth the ride in value, even if it happens more sparingly than we might otherwise wish.