[💭] Maybe the Essence of Communication Is a Heart That Tries to Understand

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Maybe the essence of communication is not a neat encyclopedia-like explanation, but the ‘consideration’ that comes from sincerely taking the other person’s many positions into account.

• Original: http://blog.naver.com/hyeogikarp/223896315542
• Naver published at: 2025/06/12 00:09 KST
• Original category: Reflections

Original

Maybe the essence of communication

is not a neat encyclopedia-like explanation,

but the “consideration” that comes from sincerely taking the other person’s many positions into account.

Some people have anosmia, some are colorblind, some have lost taste, some have intellectual disabilities, …

The world each person can perceive has clear limits.

From the five senses to the flow of thought, there can be no absolutely perfect human being.

Since childhood, I have had a clear limit in my recognition system called “loss of smell.”

In the past, I felt this as a big weakness, a huge thorn in life, and a burden.

Not knowing what smells come from others may seem positive in one sense, but not knowing what smell comes from me usually caused very negative results.

Then someone asked me, “If a person who has never seen red asks you what red is, how would you explain it?” Thinking deeply, it was a very difficult question with no clean answer. How can you sensorially describe a sense that cannot be sensed?

Hearing the question, I immediately thought of an example in reverse. It was the day I ate durian. Someone smelled durian on my breath, went “Agh!” and ran away, so I became so curious about how intense durian smell felt. So I asked them to explain the smell of durian. At that time, that person also became quite flustered and did not know how to explain it, stumbling around. But I liked even that stumbling. The heart that was trying, in any way, to step into my perspective, communicate, and understand felt pretty and warm.

So I think I too would focus on communicating and understanding while conveying that pretty, warm heart. How has the other person perceived red until now, whether the concept of saturation is perceived similarly by them, what the red they feel is like, what is special about their red, whether I can understand why they express it as having an intense feeling…

After trying to understand the other person’s position and asking and listening as much as possible, I think I would answer by scratching exactly the parts they seem curious about. Well, maybe this sounds like evading a difficult answer with vaguely pretty wording lol. But I think I would communicate that way.

While imagining this, this thought suddenly came to me.

Maybe the essence of communication is not a neat encyclopedia-like explanation, but the “consideration” that comes from sincerely taking the other person’s many positions into account.

Just as the person who explained durian smell to me while stumbling and asking all sorts of things felt so lovable, I want to become someone who explains red while stumbling and asking all sorts of things.