Communication...

Communication is difficult at times. 

Or at least clear communication. 

I've written about it before, how important it is to me to not be misunderstood. After Brent asks me a question and I've answered in a paragraph worth of words and he then sums up the answer as "yes then?" I often feel like I need another paragraph to explain why I needed the first paragraph. Yes the answer is yes but there is a reason for it. It's not a stand alone answer, there are reasons.

I want to be understood. 

And I understand how frustrating it is when I think I've been really clear in what I'm saying and someone does misunderstand me. And how angry it makes me when I realize someone is intentionally misunderstanding me. 

So all of that is a lead in to an interesting interaction over the past few days with an author that I follow, Father Nathan Monk.

When Taylor Swift's album dropped he posted the following: "Taylor just dropped a new album which is a great time to remind y'all to buy art from starving artists. Signed, a starving artist"

So what do you see when you read that? 

Is there an also in your head or an instead of? 

That's what the discourse broke down to.

And I will say when I first read it I saw an instead of. 

And this is why: 

When Beyoncé released her country album a few weeks ago and people were having HUGE fits about it, Father Nathan Monk wrote one of the best reviews of the album I've read. He talked not only about how good the music is, but how it fits into an historical timeline of country music. How wonderful it was. But he didn't mention buying art from starving artists. Though Beyoncé is far from starving. 

Having those posts come on the heels of each other it was easy to assume he was saying, don't buy this, buy that. 

And people jumped all over him for it. 

Even I had something to say. (I know you all are shocked considering how reticent I am to share my opinions) "I think the word also in this post would have been good. Without it it's really easy to insert an implied instead of.

Edit: Which as I wrote it down it made me realize we all should insert the implied also. If there are two ways to take something and one makes you mad, take it the other way."

And that was my take. With the fact that people love to hate on Taylor Swift. With the recent love in post for Beyoncé. I think it was easy to misconstrue what he was saying. If he was indeed saying "also."

I also think it would be fine if that's what he was saying. If that was his opinion then that's his opinion. 

But he didn't take it well. And I mean, I'm not the only one to have suggested an also would have been a good addition for clarity. There were other comments. And I will say I don't think making a suggestion for clarity is bad thing. 

So today he posted an essay about being purposefully misunderstood. And how that wasn't what he meant at all. Though he spent a lot of time talking about how Taylor Swift doesn't need your money and other people do so maybe it is what he meant, he just didn't mean it in a way that would make people angry? 

But anyway, he ended it with a call out to the word 'also' and a call out to other Taylor Swift lyrics, which was both clever as well as kind of snotty. Which I for one, appreciated. 

"That’s what I was trying to say the other night, but because I didn’t say “also,” then I guess it’s me; I’m the problem, it’s me.

Oh, there he goes. Playing the victim, again"

Yeah, I mean, I love his writing, but in this instance I think so, I do think he was the problem. I understand that when your job is communicating, and that is what writers do, and you miss the mark when you feel like you hit it squarely it's hard not to take it personally. I mean, they are your words, of course it's personal. But sometimes you really do need a paragraph to explain your point, or even just one more word. 

And at the end of all of this I will leave you with a recommendation to follow him on whatever social media platform you use and to subscribe to his substack. He really is a gifted writer even when I think he missed the mark by just one word. Maybe even especially then, because he did come back with a whole essay about one word, and I can appreciate that. 

To guess what Brent would have said about it, "So you mean also then?"