I’ve come to the conclusion that context is important if the Truth behind a statement matters.
Whenever I overhear someone saying something to someone else, I’ve decided it’s kind of important to have the whole picture before I decide if I know what’s being said — or, more specifically, before I jump to some kind of judgment or conclusion.
Allow me to show you what I mean by replaying a few very brief exchanges I’ve recently had with other people, and perhaps if you were to only overhear these very snippets in passing, you might agree that a bit of context would help.
…..
ME: How did you get your start?
FEMALE: Well, I used to exclusively shoot high school seniors, but then I started shooting couples, which eventually led to shooting people on the most important day of their lives. 😳
….
ME: What’s next on your list?
MALE: I’m going to do the ladies while they’re getting ready, and then after that, I’ll do the guys — and once I’m done with all of them, I’ll do the whole group and maybe their families — if I can get them all in the same room. Any chance you can help me with that? 😟
….
ME: What do you want me to do next?
FEMALE: Go ahead and strike the tables and bag everything up and then stick all of it behind the redwood screens so no one will see it. 🙈
….
ME: How’s the sound?
MALE: I tested it to see if my mic can pick up a three-way and it sounded pretty good. Not perfect, but that’s all you can expect with a three-way — even when you do it indoors. 😏
…..
I tell people all the time that working a wedding is a very dirty job, but out of context, most of the conversations I have during any given wedding can make it sound even dirtier! There’s a lot of shooting, doing, striking, and three-ways in my side hustle, but when all of those sentences are said within the context of a wedding, those statements are just bland updates or instructions about photography, videography, cleaning things up, and sound equipment!
(So get your mind out of the gutter, will ya?! 😬)
Sometimes, when I’m extra punchy from being so tired at a wedding, I actually have to keep myself from laughing at all of the ridiculous things we say to each other in passing as wedding vendors. However, I almost always know what everyone means — because I’m living in the context of those conversations.
But yesterday, Lou and I were having an interesting chat in our car on our way to the bank and then the grocery store. And for me, at least, the chat we were having was just a mild little chit-chat, and there wasn’t any heat or misunderstanding taking shape between us. But after we pulled into one of the microscopic, California-style, eco-friendly-car-shaped parking spaces with our giant king-cab pickup, Lou was still talking when we both got out of the truck, and so he raised his volume a bit so I could hear him over the massive hood. And the sentence he said suddenly became unexpectedly loaded if it were to be taken out of context, which…I think it was.
….
LOU: “Blah, blah, blah Trump is the president.” 🙄
….
As soon as those words came out of Lou’s mouth, I noticed a guy who was walking just ahead of us toward the set of ATM machines just outside of our bank. The guy had long silver hair and was wearing a pair of dirty, low-slung Levis, and as soon as he heard Lou say the name, “Trump,” his head was on a swivel, and his eyes locked with mine. He narrowed his eyes a bit and stared me down, and that look kind of rattled me.
…..
ME: “Lou! Let’s just talk about this later — at home or something?” 😨
…..
I’m almost positive Lou was oblivious to my non-verbal exchange with good old droopy drawers at the ATM machine next to the one we started to use. But I could feel this chilly vibration in the air, and I for one was thankful when the guy completed his transaction, and when Lou moved on to the totally benign topic of the things we needed to buy at the grocery store before we headed for home.
Now if that guy cared about the context of our conversation at all, it wasn’t clear, but if he had actually heard what Lou was saying, there wasn’t anything to get miffed about whatsoever.
Newsflash: Donald Trump is the president at the moment…even if that bothers people. 😶
But Lou isn’t afraid of incendiary exchanges about politics, and so most of the time, I do try to steer clear of bringing up that subject with Lou or anyone else for that matter whenever we’re in public or mixed company. But this time was different. There was absolutely no heat, controversy, or polarizing commentary whatsoever, yet out of context, something Lou said clearly took that man down his own bunny trail. And that reality made me wonder:
How many times in my life have I done that to someone? 🤔
I mean, how many little snippets have I overheard in passing that made me misinterpret something in my midst? And to be more specific, what if one or two of the words I overheard were personally loaded for me, and those words sent me down a bunny trail that was unfair or judgmental to the person who said them? I’m sure there would be too many of those incidents to count because I’m pretty much always walking around in my own little bubble, thinking my own little thoughts, and seeing the world through my own little perspective.
The way life is set up, it would be impossible to live in the context of every conversation, and so clearly, that leaves all of us at a disadvantage when it comes to what we actually know about one another. But I guess the thing I’m really exploring in my own thoughts is how when I hear something out of context, why am even I so prone to going negative before I go positive in the assumptions of my understanding?
Why is that?
I don’t know why…
My hunch is that I live in a world where negative news and the dark or controversial spin on a story makes it more interesting than the simple or benign reality that might be taking shape. A story that falls off the radar of understanding with a sizzle of drama in the mix is way more attention-grabbing than the reality of a boring or plain story about nothing at all, I suppose.
But I guess in general when you really think about it…unless we’re directly involved in a conversation, or an experience, or a happening in this world, everything could be taken out of context, right? And we all could be living in one giant “Who’s on First” conversation where what I mean and what you mean smash into something else, and everything gets lost in the translation.
