Nothing is Obvious

I have this on my desk for over a year. A reminder that helps me keep writing. Or I’ll think nothing is worth your time.

Today, I realized it to a greater extent after a conversation with my routine cafe’s barista, trying to explain to her what I do here every Sunday. It made me aware of the surprising amount of jargon I use in day to day life. Something that might be super obvious to me, but to the listener, completely alien.

So how difficult is it to explain what I do at the cafe? Well for starters, this is what I do according to my LinkedIn bio:

Imagine me saying that in real life XD. No, I’m not all jargon. I responded with a simple answer, “I write a blog.” A blog — pretty self explanatory, right? Not so much… I could see the confusion on her forehead. To understand further, she asked what I wrote about exactly.

That’s even harder for me to answer. There’s no pattern, no format, or a niche to my writing. So I went ahead and said, “I write about whatever’s on my mind this week. What I’m up to, something I read, a place I visited, a conversation I had. Just whatever’s on my mind, I write about it.” I know this is not the best answer. Her expressions conveyed the same.

Suddenly it popped in my head, wth am I doing?! I opened my laptop and turned it to her side. Show, don’t tell. She started reading last week’s essay. Meanwhile I am explaining that this is my website, it’s called Weekly Meditations, and I publish my work here. After reading a couple of paragraphs, she stops and asks a question.

“So, is this website on Google?”

That, my friends, was the moment of epiphany. Working with computers for so long, it never occurred to me that people can perceive Google to be like YouTube or Instagram. Like a reel being on Insta, she thinks that websites live on Google. I did not correct her, didn’t think it was my place.

Plus it’s not that big of a deal anyways. It’s me who’s making a fuss about it. But it’s not just about this particular anecdote. It’s about the revelation it led to. The revelation that one, nothing is obvious and you better convey your ideas in simple manner if you want to be understood.

And two, humans have an incredible ability to make a personal model of the world by filling the gaps in their knowledge. Outside our profession, outside our needs and interests, we know so less that our worldview is narrow, flimsy, and brittle. No, I’m not talking about her or anyone in particular. I’m talking about people in general, I’m talking about myself.

Only a few months back, I was talking to my cousin who works at a rural bank. I took a guess at the number of customers he might be serving — 100,000ish? 2,000! I didn’t have the faintest idea of the population of a village.

Another example. When I was in McLeod Ganj, an Australian woman asked my friend about his job. He said he works at an MNC.

“Sorry what?”

“Oh, so like it’s a big company with operations all over the world. I’m a consultant there.”

“Umm… What do you do?”

“We have all sorts of projects, I’m in the IT department.”

I’ll leave the further conversation to your imagination. My point is that we are so tightly knitted to our routines, cities, and social circles that we have a certain perception of the world and a certain expectation from it. We conveniently throw around words and expect people to understand them. This works for the most part.

But the moment you step outside this sphere, you’ll see that people don’t just live in different cities or do different jobs, they are from different universes. Your sophisticated vocabulary is gibberish to them, and your life, a fantasy novel.

So… want to understand the world? Break out of your universe more often. Want to be understood? Speak plain language. Don’t assume anything. Nothing is obvious.

Well anyways, I got a new reader today!

Good night,
Aachman