Another Castle

Every time you add more detail, you're running the risk of tripping over a bad assumption on your part about the listener's prior knowledge, or hitting the tipping point where they become overwhelmed with new information (and remember that you don't know which parts of what you're saying will be new information for them), or making a leap of logic that isn't as self-evident as you think it is, or any of a dozen other potential snags which, by definition, you will not see coming until it's too late to correct course.

Basically, every piece of information you add multiplies the odds of you getting blindsided by some vector of misunderstanding you didn't anticipate, even as it addresses the ones you did anticipate. The point of diminishing returns where continuing to elaborate increases the odds of unexpected miscommunication more than it decreases the odds of expected miscommunication is much nearer than you'd like.

The most effective act of communication is not the one which contains the most possible information, but the one which contains the smallest amount of information it possibly can while still getting its point across. It sucks, but it's the reality of the situation. People far more autistic than you have been trying for hundreds of years to invent a way of communicating which doesn't work this way, without success.

...so you're saying that the 200-word RPG thing counts as "developing important life skills"? (For people who aren't intending to make a living writing RPGs, that is.)

To pose an example, one common type of overexplaining is trying to anticipate what your listener might need clarification about, and to pre-emptively provide that clarification.

How can this go wrong?

Well, for starters, you might guess wrong about where clarification is needed, and now you're talking down to them for no reason. (This can, and often does, tie into bad assumptions on your part about the listener's prior knowledge; see above.)

Worse, you might correctly identify where clarification is needed, but guess wrong about the specific type of clarification your listener needs, which can go wrong in one of two ways. Either they allow that opportunity for dialogue to be closed off, and muddle on without the needed clarification; or they bite the bullet and ask anyway, and now you think they clearly weren't paying attention to what you're saying, because God, you already explained that, and you're too much in your own head to notice that the type of clarification you pre-emptively provided is not the type of clarification they actually need.

And of course, you may not react this way at all, but they may anticipate that you'll think they're not paying attention if they push back, and refrain from asking because they don't want to risk your disapproval.

All communication, without exception, requires the listener to draw conclusions not only about what is being said, but also about why it's being said.

When the sky still felt close enough to touch,

and gods were simply neighbors we carved into stone so we wouldn’t forget them.

Magical Madeira, Portugal

I remember when marriage equality was called and there were waves of rainbows and love wins posts. When we successfully defeated Donald Trump, there was lukewarm relief, a reminder that you were only allowed one or maybe two days to celebrate and then it was back to work. That is if you were even a good person for voting Biden. We never did settle if he was better than Trump. (We did.). We didn’t celebrate student loan debt relief or any of the accomplishments of the Biden administration, or any of the times Trump was blocked, or other countries succeeding in keeping fascists out of office. Who cares if we had successes? It’s not good enough. Back to work!

And this anti-celebratory attitude stretches back to the past. On the 100th anniversary of female suffrage in America, we were reminded that not all women had the vote and so we weren’t allowed to celebrate. The only post I saw about Juneteenth was reminding us that there were enslaved people who were killed instead of freed and therefore celebrating the end of chattel slavery was wrong, and besides, we have prison labor so nothing really changed or got better and there’s nothing to celebrate anyway. Trans Day of Visibility comes with Trans Day of Remembrance so that people don’t fill the tags with hate crimes and death. So on and so forth. Nothing gets better. Nothing changes. Back to work!

So of course when we have a major setback, we fall apart and have to start frantic damage control. Frantic discourse ensues over how much people are allowed to unplug before it becomes bad and selfish. Yes, maybe you can have this one day off Mr. Cratchit but you better be here and miserable early the next morning. Like abusive bosses always insisting you squeeze out more, more, more, and any achievement is just proof you were lazy the other times and impetus for more work.

It both keeps everybody miserable, and it’s not actually enlightened at all. I remember so clearly when we defeated Trump, and there were posts with thousands of notes literally on the day the election was called scolding us for being happy. I hated those posts then, and considering the outright despair I’ve seen over the past 3 weeks since his re-election, I hate them more now. When people are shamed into not celebrating wins, the message becomes “these wins aren’t actually THAT important”, and then people take everything for granted until it’s too late. Again, I’m thinking of people who reblogged “don’t celebrate Trump losing!” posts getting a rude awakening 4 years later when he won again.