It was cheesiest opening I could think of, but it is a riddle I have been thinking about since I first heard it in elementary school - if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Yes it does. But plot twist - the tree is a metaphor, you are the tree in this story, you’re always the tree in all the stories, because you are the protagonist and it took you until right now to figure that out. You’re so silly.
The question you should be asking though is who cares about the tree falling? How could anyone care about it if they weren’t around to witness it? The tree fell, but nobody knows. So that might be why it sometimes feels like nobody gives a shit - you didn’t tell them it fell!
The tree falling is a metanym for anything you find significant in your life that you keep to yourself.
Share more. One of my favorite things about being alive is that everything is learnable. Poetry, cooking, weaving, coding, pottery, foreign languages, painting, rockclimbing, negotiation, welding metals. The act of creation is a gift that comes from the divine - but sharing it is human.
I almost don’t want to continue this post. I know I am stretching this metaphor, and taking far too many creative licenses. But I can’t help but think of the tragedy that ensues when people keep things to themselves. Prude is what I call the person who is afraid to say what is on their mind, or ask the question when they are confused.
Communication failures occur not when something needs to be repeated, but when it doesn’t happen at all. Too often we hold ideas in our head that we believe to be common sense, and we coexist with people who we feel should know us better than they actually do. And we carry expectations that our problems should be telepathically broadcasted to those around us and we foster the attitude that if a person we care about needs to be told when they are falling short, then they must not care about our feelings. You are the tree in this story too, the thoughts you harbor are the trees faling. They make a sound, but only in your head. Again, nobody was around to hear them.
Of course it is sometimes the case that you have an amazing revelation or event happen that you rush to tell other people and they don’t seem to care at all about your story. Or you discovered something new that was obvious to everyone else and they make you feel bad when you decide to share. That’s feedback. Trees are falling everywhere all around us, trees you have no idea about or any interest in, that are nonetheless shaking the world of people you care about.
Instead of thinking about communication as a transfer of information, from one person to another, think about it as a transfer of feeling. This is what is meant when scientists say that 90% of communication comes from non-verbal cues like body language and tone of voice.
Communication becomes a lot easier when you realize that English is not a single unified language but a collection of thousands of foreign languages divided by subcultures. You need to translate your thoughts for your audience to hear it if you want to be heard. And instead of thinking that friends and family should be the exception, they can be the people who need your translation most, they should be the people you practice and build confidence with.
People do not generally get mad when you practice better communication skills with them, they tend to appreciate your effort because it makes you a more pleasant person to be around. You don’t need to tell them you’re practicing your communication, you can just decide to start and see if you get different reactions. Having family and friends that you can practice any new skill on is an asset that most people take for granted.
Of course we have an inherent need though to share our experiences with others. That is why communication is a skill worth investing time and effort in. But if it feels that nobody cares about what you have to share, that’s feedback that your work is not yet done. Keep going.
Quote of the day:
We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone… By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”
- Aldous Huxley, Doors of Perception