true, kind, and necessary
When I left home for Italy at the end of May, I left with the nervous heart of a language-limited conference presenter and the words of a recently read and rather trite Tricycle Buddhist magazine article ringing in my mind. Those words were one of a set of tips for mindfully using social media, a growing concern for me in my worldwide network of colleagues in a scientific field desperately needing public outreach. Those words asked one to pause before bothering to communicate and ask oneself simply "Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?".
Since then, many times when communication at work or among other social groups becomes tense or ponderous, those questions have been finding their way back into my consciousness. podisodd has noted, when I've brought this up, that we're not all Buddhist monks or other mindful spiritualists as a profession who needs ought to keep such things in mind at all times, and he's right. But when communication is fraught, I am finding it both easier and more imperative to use their tools. "True" is easy enough most of the time. "Kind" can often simply be a matter of wording. What I've needed the most work on, surprising no one, is "necessary". For my first lesson, at that recurring international conference for my job, sometimes the language barrier is formidable and when it comes to gossipy backchannel chatter, the answer to "Is it necessary?" is an emphatic no. Learning when not to bother speaking, or writing, is not something at which I have any natural skill. If I've been quieter in recent months, this slowly coalescing realisation is much of why.
Yet on the other hand I have surprised myself in discovering when the answer to "Is it necessary?" is yes. The last hours of that Italy trip were spent in a taxi and the Naples airport with some young French colleagues who were as disheartened as they were lonely and tired after a week of fighting language barriers not only with the locals, but with the conference itself being in very exacting technical English. One of them has a crippling stutter only when speaking in English: he writes it well enough (though I have no idea how long this takes), he comprehends it when spoken, but to be able to respond in French relieves him of a huge communicative burden. My command of his native language is likewise. With a simple hello and a reassurance that we could communicate well enough and more easily each in our native tongues, I spent our last conversation brightening his entire week and opening doors for more effective necessary collaboration between our projects.
No less importantly, after a recent weekend retreat and family picnic sort of event, I myself returned home to a small semi-local social group where the sort of spiritual and artistic topics at hand were the sorts of things I could easily converse about day-to-day, while some folks traveled thousands of miles home to lose much of that context. I have been trying my best to keep those lines of communication open, to provide conversational safe space in the ways I can, on line and in text messages late into the night. If I've been quieter in general lately, this communication has been another source of why; it does eat into my time and ability to talk where and when it is any less important. But, as I am learning, in more contexts than the sort of romantic relationships where I require it of myself and my partner, sometimes "Is it necessary?" turns out to be "Yes!" in less obvious ways than I'd considered. When it is most important to be mindful, I am trying to adjust. And I'm feeling a little better for it. About, well, everything.
Since then, many times when communication at work or among other social groups becomes tense or ponderous, those questions have been finding their way back into my consciousness. podisodd has noted, when I've brought this up, that we're not all Buddhist monks or other mindful spiritualists as a profession who needs ought to keep such things in mind at all times, and he's right. But when communication is fraught, I am finding it both easier and more imperative to use their tools. "True" is easy enough most of the time. "Kind" can often simply be a matter of wording. What I've needed the most work on, surprising no one, is "necessary". For my first lesson, at that recurring international conference for my job, sometimes the language barrier is formidable and when it comes to gossipy backchannel chatter, the answer to "Is it necessary?" is an emphatic no. Learning when not to bother speaking, or writing, is not something at which I have any natural skill. If I've been quieter in recent months, this slowly coalescing realisation is much of why.
Yet on the other hand I have surprised myself in discovering when the answer to "Is it necessary?" is yes. The last hours of that Italy trip were spent in a taxi and the Naples airport with some young French colleagues who were as disheartened as they were lonely and tired after a week of fighting language barriers not only with the locals, but with the conference itself being in very exacting technical English. One of them has a crippling stutter only when speaking in English: he writes it well enough (though I have no idea how long this takes), he comprehends it when spoken, but to be able to respond in French relieves him of a huge communicative burden. My command of his native language is likewise. With a simple hello and a reassurance that we could communicate well enough and more easily each in our native tongues, I spent our last conversation brightening his entire week and opening doors for more effective necessary collaboration between our projects.
No less importantly, after a recent weekend retreat and family picnic sort of event, I myself returned home to a small semi-local social group where the sort of spiritual and artistic topics at hand were the sorts of things I could easily converse about day-to-day, while some folks traveled thousands of miles home to lose much of that context. I have been trying my best to keep those lines of communication open, to provide conversational safe space in the ways I can, on line and in text messages late into the night. If I've been quieter in general lately, this communication has been another source of why; it does eat into my time and ability to talk where and when it is any less important. But, as I am learning, in more contexts than the sort of romantic relationships where I require it of myself and my partner, sometimes "Is it necessary?" turns out to be "Yes!" in less obvious ways than I'd considered. When it is most important to be mindful, I am trying to adjust. And I'm feeling a little better for it. About, well, everything.