Part of the series: Why and How I Started a Blog
Another uninvited thought spiral, dropped here for safekeeping. This one’s about the art of explanation, why we stopped doing it, and what we’ve lost by skipping the in-between.
The Moment That Stopped Me Mid-Stride
I was on a walk, earbuds in, listening to The Art of Charm podcast when Joe Navarro said something that made me stop right where I was. Navarro, author of What Every BODY Is Saying, was reflecting on how, centuries ago, it was fashionable to gather in French salons and explain how we came to believe what we believe. Thought was conversational. Explanation wasn’t just tolerated; it was expected.
That small detail caught me. People used to value how ideas formed, not just the conclusion they led to. They lingered in the middle of thought, the messy, meandering part where clarity is still taking shape.
Today, we’re more likely to be told to “get to the point.” We share our convictions in 140 characters or less. The shorter the better. And while I appreciate the elegance of brevity, I genuinely do, something about that expectation feels incomplete. We’ve grown fluent in conclusion but illiterate in process.
Sometimes, what I miss isn’t longer conversations, but slower ones. The kind where you talk not just to be understood, but to understand yourself a little better in the process.
How We Lost the Art of Explanation
It’s strange to realize that an entire cultural habit can fade quietly, replaced not by opposition but by optimization. Our collective attention span has shortened, and with it, our tolerance for context.
Part of this is the rhythm of the internet itself. Brevity travels fast; depth requires stillness. In a space built for immediacy, pausing to unpack how you think can seem indulgent. But what begins as efficiency often becomes erosion. The nuance we trim away for clarity sometimes carries the meaning we most need to keep.
When we strip conversation down to its most shareable parts, we lose the connective tissue that helps others see why something matters. We skip the bridge between thought and understanding, and that bridge is where empathy lives. The cost is mutual comprehension, the kind that makes dialogue feel like collaboration instead of competition.
If Rethinking the Newsletter was about slowing communication to create care, this reflection is about slowing thought itself to make space for shared understanding. The art of explanation is part logic, part patience, and part faith that someone will stay long enough to hear how you got there.
The Courage to Ask
It takes real steadiness to admit what you don’t know. Somewhere along the way, we turned questions into risks. In business especially, we’re told not to ask what we don’t already know. The goal becomes control, arriving polished, guiding the conversation toward a conclusion we’ve already rehearsed. But that kind of precision leaves no room for discovery.
I can’t count the number of prep meetings I’ve had before the prep meeting for the meeting itself. We spend so much time anticipating what might be asked that we forget the point of being in the room together. The best discussions, the ones that lead somewhere useful, start with someone saying, “I don’t know yet. Tell me what you know, and let’s see where we can go from there.”
That’s the part we’ve lost: the belief that not knowing is still participation. Asking isn’t weakness; it’s willingness. It’s the courage to enter a conversation without the map already drawn.
Maybe that’s why I find AI oddly comforting. It’s the first space in a long time where asking doesn’t feel risky. I can ask the same question five different ways without worrying about how I sound. I can say, “Explain it like I’m ten,” or “Wait, pull that thread again,” or “You told me that already, say it shorter this time.” I can loop back for clarity instead of pretending I already understood.
That’s the freedom I wish we gave each other more often, the freedom to learn in real time. Because asking is a form of courage, and discussion, at its best, is a form of care. (This idea will resurface later in AI in Plain Clothes, a future series about learning to think with technology instead of performing for it.)
Parallel Monologues and the Disappearance of Dialogue
When I scroll through social feeds or sit in on panels, I often feel like I’m witnessing parallel monologues. People talk near each other rather than with each other. The cadence of exchange is fast, the tone declarative. Every opinion becomes a headline.
It’s not that these voices lack sincerity; it’s that they lack the space to breathe. There’s no room for the hinge moments, the pauses where someone says, “Wait, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
We confuse conviction with volume and explanation with vulnerability. Yet explaining how we think is one of the most generous things we can do. It invites others into our reasoning instead of demanding they accept our conclusions. To explain is to slow the pace of assumption. It’s to build a bridge wide enough for two people to walk across together.
Why I Write Here
That’s part of why I keep writing here. This blog gives me the space that modern communication has quietly edited out, the room to explain, to follow a thought through instead of clipping it for speed. It’s where I can linger without apology, writing the way I think, and invite others into that process.
Maybe that’s what long-form writing really offers now, not length for its own sake, but permission to linger. The art of explanation isn’t just about clarity; it’s about creating the time and structure to think something through. That’s what this space is for, thinking out loud, in public, at a human pace.
Reclaiming the Art of Explanation
We say “just get to the point” as if the point exists apart from the journey. But sometimes the getting there is the point.
To explain yourself slowly is to risk being misunderstood in the short term, but better understood in the long one. It’s an act of trust, trusting that someone will stay long enough to hear not just what you believe but how you arrived there.
Reclaiming the art of explanation doesn’t mean writing paragraphs where a sentence would do. It means giving context the dignity of presence. It means remembering that speed is not the same as substance.
And maybe it means reviving the small rituals that used to make space for this: lingering conversations over dinner, long walks that turn into reflections, letters that unfold across pages instead of pixels.
The tools may have changed, but the need hasn’t. We still crave the warmth of being known through understanding, not assumption.
A Different Kind of Invitation
I’m not trying to make a point. I’m trying to think it through, to model what it looks like to stay with a thought until it reveals what it was trying to say.
If this reflection helps you slow down or extend a conversation a little longer before you summarize it, then it’s done its job. We don’t need to go backward to reclaim depth; we just need to remember that thinking takes time, and that time is not wasted.
So here’s my invitation: take the scenic route with someone this week. Explain something that doesn’t fit in a caption. Let the pauses do their work.
(See The Power of Being Understood for where this reflection continues.)