Embracing the lossiness that comes with language
Or what is said is always different from what is understood
Language is an imprecise vehicle for communicating our thoughts or feelings. In many cases, language can worsen what we're trying to say.1
If you're anything like me — with random thoughts constantly rumbling around your head — this limitation frustrates you. It's super annoying struggling to accurately convey what you're trying to say, even when the words are clear in your head.
I prefer writing to speaking because it's the only way I can gain some precision over this slippery thing called language. Yet, to quote Poet Geoffrey Hill, “Everything that I write is a kind of battle won — or lost — against silence and incoherence.”
Naturally, this conundrum frustrates me:
I'm trying to write as clearly as possible as a way to manage the gaps that exist in communication.
Yet, in trying to be more precise, sometimes, I become incoherent or, worse, silent.
Thankfully, a conversation I had two weeks ago made me realize that I'm not alone. We're all locked into an unwinnable and inescapable battle because lossiness is a feature of language and not a bug.
My alternative definition of lossiness is when you upload a fire picture from your phone’s gallery to WhatsApp, and the picture quality reduces.
Now, I've developed two ways to react to this immutable fact of nature.
Trust
a) I’m not the only one with a rich interiority and the capacity to grok things, so I’m going to speak as directly and honestly as possible.
b) I trust that other people will meet my communication charitably and take out what's beneficial to them while forgiving any omission[s]. After all, all communication is a good-faith act of compression.
c) I’m going to trust myself, especially when I’ve tried to be as clear as possible.
Acceptance
a) Accepting that I’ll never be able to communicate half of the things I’m thinking effectively because of the nature of language. Also, accepting that information can never be transmitted 1:1 in any direction.2
b) Accepting that “the lossiness of conversations allows for mutation and evolution,” which is not always a bad thing.
One example is how people regularly tease out meaning beyond the author's intention or imagination. For instance, I might write an essay about agency from the lens of work or relationships, and someone might read it, take some of the framework, and use the idea to build space stations. Basically, “misunderstanding” can be helpful, especially when it meets someone who has different skills and interests from you and makes them do way more interesting things than you could have ever imagined.
c) Accepting that in certain situations, lossiness helps compress large amounts of information and prevent whelm for both the giver and receiver.3
d) Accepting that, in certain instances, the lossiness that occurs on the recipient’s side is a call for clarification of the subject matter. As someone told me recently, “Repetition is not failure.” “Repetition is clarification.” “Delight in repetition.”
e) Accepting that not everyone will get what you’re trying to say, and that's okay, too.
f) Finally, making peace with the lossiness that results from trying to write an article on lossiness — typical skill issue.
Inverters are a perfect example of how “information” is never transmitted 1:1. Here’s an interesting excerpt:
“The inverter's efficiency can be said to be good when there is no significant difference between the input and output power. However, owing to the nature of the device, power losses are inevitable. System losses occur when converting DC, which is produced by PV panels and solar cells, into AC, a consumable form.
All the energy losses that occur in the inverter are considered system losses. In the case of DC-to-AC conversion, no converter can achieve 100% efficiency. This means that the output (AC) energy is not as high as the input (DC) energy. The efficiency of the inverter generally ranges from 95 to 98%. The efficiency may vary depending on the DC input power and voltage. Research is being conducted to maintain the efficiency of the inverter by extracting the maximum power from the PV panel using the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm.”
Proverbs and idioms seem like an example of this. While writing this, I also realized that compression is an excellent way to mass produce or generalize ideas outside yourself.