This hit me today for absolutely no reason. It hit me so hard that I was compelled to sit down quietly and think about it for a while (in the middle of a shitty day at work). It isn't even a big deal but the way it sort of came together in words in my head was amazing.
I use the word 'defend' here in the context of, e.g., Someone says - "Why didn't you come to the party yesterday?" and I say "well, I..." to which the reply is "It's okay. You don't have to defend yourself".
When we defend ourselves we are actually convincing ourselves that whatever we are saying is correct in essence. We want to believe that though we are sugarcoating the facts, the facts themselves remain. In other words, there is some element of guilt involved. And it always shows.
Explaining is when we want to convince other person. We are convinced that we are on the right through and through but somehow the listener has misunderstood. Our attitude towards the whole thing is vastly different.
I understand that the distinction is so fine as to be mostly moot, but like I said, it's not about the idea but about the pristine clarity with which it exploded in my head - Kind of like the first time I actually UNDERSTOOD conditional probability (which was sadly not until the final year of my college education).
I use the word 'defend' here in the context of, e.g., Someone says - "Why didn't you come to the party yesterday?" and I say "well, I..." to which the reply is "It's okay. You don't have to defend yourself".
When we defend ourselves we are actually convincing ourselves that whatever we are saying is correct in essence. We want to believe that though we are sugarcoating the facts, the facts themselves remain. In other words, there is some element of guilt involved. And it always shows.
Explaining is when we want to convince other person. We are convinced that we are on the right through and through but somehow the listener has misunderstood. Our attitude towards the whole thing is vastly different.
I understand that the distinction is so fine as to be mostly moot, but like I said, it's not about the idea but about the pristine clarity with which it exploded in my head - Kind of like the first time I actually UNDERSTOOD conditional probability (which was sadly not until the final year of my college education).
Well.. I suppose one reason for the distinction to be so fine is the fact that you could be either "defending" or "explaining" yourself when faced with the SAME situation. Like in your eg., when you respond to a ques like "Why didn't you come to the party yesterday?" , you might be explaining yourself but the opposite party might think that you are defending yourself..
ReplyDeleteNice post by the way.. kinda reminded me of the conversations we use to have at Prodyogiki :)
The fact that the other person gets it wrong is the source of the whole debate. I guess the only way to guess is by the tone of the voice.
ReplyDelete