Marco Polo described a bridge, stone by stone.
- But what’s the stone that holds the bridge? - asks Kublain Kan.
- The bridge does not hold due to this or that rock - answered Marco - but due to the line in the arc that they form.
Kublai Kan remained silent, thinking. Then he added: Why do you speak to me of stones? It’s the arc that matters.
Marco answered: Without stones, there’s no arc.
Italo Calvino - “Invisible Cities”
This small story reminds me of relationships between different perceptions of the same thing.
We’re seeing someone describing the elements of a given object to someone that’s asking about the Gestalt (the conjunction of those same individual elements into a coherent thing).
Any “object” can be described in these 2 ways but they are part of the same thing, different sides of the same coin.
Nevertheless, understanding when to highlight one or the other may actually be key to developing better communication with other people.
There’s a difference between focusing on an element (a specific behavior) and a person (an identity).
I didn’t appreciated the way you talk with me in that moment.
vs
You’re both rude and mean!
Can you get the difference?
How would you feel when receiving the first and the former?
The first one is obviously focused on a specific moment in time. We’re talking about a distinct behavior, an individual element.
In the second one though, we’re focusing on the individual as a whole. We’re attributing an identity to the person, labeling it as X or Y.
There’s no way we’ll get into a Modern Golden Age without creating meaningful connections with people. Those connections come with a certain degree of pain.
Some of it is unavoidable, but maybe there’s part of this emergent pain, coming from communicating with other human beings, that can be allayed by understanding when to talk with someone using specific elements and when to do it based on their overall “structure”.
How to use this depends on the contexts you inhabit.
Here’s my quick rule (use it if resonates with you):
If I’m criticizing someone, I’ll focus on the elements, the specific thing.
If I’m praising someone, I’ll focus on the Gestalt and individual elements.
Try it out and see how it goes.