Ever tried to explain something that lived in you for years, and watched it shrink to a clumsy sentence? That’s how most conversations feel to me. The history behind the words never makes it through.
Talking is lossy compression. It sounds quick, but it crawls. Machines share everything in a blink. We live on fiber, but speak on dial-up. No wonder so much gets lost.
I see it when I try to help with my own scars. In my head it’s clear, shaped by mistakes and lessons. What they hear is a flat sentence. It doesn’t sound like help. It sounds like doubt. You can’t pour years into a few words.
Same with people. Someone I’ve known for years is a layered picture I can hardly describe even to myself. Then a stranger meets them twice and thinks they know them. They don’t. And I can’t beam my version into their head.
Sci-fi imagines a shortcut. In Star Trek, the Vulcan mind meld is direct sharing of thoughts and feelings. If that existed, maybe we could pass on the richness inside. Instead we push everything through the narrow pipe of words. Detail gets lost.
Even if I could hand you the whole file, would you see it like I do? Memories aren’t data. They’re tied to who I was that day. The territory is lived. The map is what we trade. Never the same walk.
This limit shapes everything. Misunderstandings, conflicts, loneliness. At best you hand over fragments and hope the gaps get filled. Sometimes they do. Often they don’t.
Stories, metaphors, music, art carry more than words. Shared moments help too. Listening helps most, the slow kind where you borrow someone’s map. But human talk will always be partial, always a compromise.
So I remind myself: if they don’t get it, maybe words are just too small. The best I can do is keep trying.
I still envy machines. In the AI world, mind meld is standard. They copy the whole state in a blink, no loss, no cracks. But maybe the long walk we take to understand each other is the point. Maybe meaning only shows up when it has to travel.
