it sounds absurd when stated boldly but
we do not always at some deep level
understand that we need to speak to
those whom we so badly wish would
understand us we long for our intentions
to be known for our moods to be honored
for our states of mind to be read but we
don’t for that matter
want to speak or particularly see an
urgent need to do so we want to be
guests at intuited read by a kind of
magic we don’t realize we believe in we
want people to know what we have not
bothered to tell them we may even in
certain moods suspect that they do know
full well what we think and want but are
deliberately frustrating us in order to
score points and humiliate us the only
explanations for them not having guessed
already is rudeness a lack of love or
extreme stupidity we think like this not
because we’re evil
we are stubbornly mute because we were
for a short but profound length of time
infants in other words for a significant
stretch we were in the odd position that
we couldn’t utter a word others had to
guess what was on our minds they
listened to our crying they witnessed
our angry faces they saw our
outstretched arms they had a shot at
guessing and they got it right they were
not geniuses at interpersonal
understanding they guessed correctly
because it was easy the things we needed
back then was so uncomplicated and so
limited food and drink clean clothes
sleep hygiene and a bit of reassurance
it is this ancestral memory of
successful mind-reading that has the
paradoxical effect of making us more
isolated and intemperate than we need to
be in later life we keep expecting that
a process which unfolded successfully
when we were young might continue to
occur even though we have grown
infinitely more sophisticated in what we
need to be understood for we don’t just
need the milk and a cuddle
we now need people to understand how our
diary is looking next week what the hand
we put around them in bed means
how the kitchen should be left where the
towels need to hang how the document
should go back to the New York office
who should have the remote control and
how we feel about their mother and we
want them to know all this not on the
basis of careful and slow instructions
and eloquent patient and playful
disquisitions but immediately just like
that on the basis of they’re intelligent
and they care for us and if they don’t
understand then there might be cause to
shout to accuse them of laziness or a
lack of affection or to fire them we are
terrible communicators because we refuse
to accept the dignity necessity and
complexity of the act of communication
we wander the earth with the problems of
sophisticated adults insisting on
believing that we are as easy to
understand as infants did you know we
also have an app to help you meet people
with whom you can have deeper more
meaningful connections follow the link on your screen now to download it
we do not always at some deep level
understand that we need to speak to
those whom we so badly wish would
understand us we long for our intentions
to be known for our moods to be honored
for our states of mind to be read but we
don’t for that matter
want to speak or particularly see an
urgent need to do so we want to be
guests at intuited read by a kind of
magic we don’t realize we believe in we
want people to know what we have not
bothered to tell them we may even in
certain moods suspect that they do know
full well what we think and want but are
deliberately frustrating us in order to
score points and humiliate us the only
explanations for them not having guessed
already is rudeness a lack of love or
extreme stupidity we think like this not
because we’re evil
we are stubbornly mute because we were
for a short but profound length of time
infants in other words for a significant
stretch we were in the odd position that
we couldn’t utter a word others had to
guess what was on our minds they
listened to our crying they witnessed
our angry faces they saw our
outstretched arms they had a shot at
guessing and they got it right they were
not geniuses at interpersonal
understanding they guessed correctly
because it was easy the things we needed
back then was so uncomplicated and so
limited food and drink clean clothes
sleep hygiene and a bit of reassurance
it is this ancestral memory of
successful mind-reading that has the
paradoxical effect of making us more
isolated and intemperate than we need to
be in later life we keep expecting that
a process which unfolded successfully
when we were young might continue to
occur even though we have grown
infinitely more sophisticated in what we
need to be understood for we don’t just
need the milk and a cuddle
we now need people to understand how our
diary is looking next week what the hand
we put around them in bed means
how the kitchen should be left where the
towels need to hang how the document
should go back to the New York office
who should have the remote control and
how we feel about their mother and we
want them to know all this not on the
basis of careful and slow instructions
and eloquent patient and playful
disquisitions but immediately just like
that on the basis of they’re intelligent
and they care for us and if they don’t
understand then there might be cause to
shout to accuse them of laziness or a
lack of affection or to fire them we are
terrible communicators because we refuse
to accept the dignity necessity and
complexity of the act of communication
we wander the earth with the problems of
sophisticated adults insisting on
believing that we are as easy to
understand as infants did you know we
also have an app to help you meet people
with whom you can have deeper more
meaningful connections follow the link on your screen now to download it
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