Communicating with awareness

Assumed audience: You've come across one or more instant messages from me and you're wondering why I write like this.

This article goes into why.

Meta-message and message

Whenever communication breaks down and I'm primarily at fault, it always involves me responding immediately. This tends to happen when I feel any strong emotion, most commonly when I'm upset, uncomfortable, or rushed.

Now, instead of reacting, I'm trying to be present—trying to pause and process any feelings that are there so that, when I next respond, I'm able to communicate with awareness.

I've distilled communicating with awareness into two steps: setting the meta-message (determining what kind of message it is) and then generating the message. If I'm in person, the message will be made up of verbal and non-verbal communication. Otherwise, if I'm instant messaging, it will be made up of words, Morphs, and GIFs.

I've found it difficult to detect meta-messages while instant messaging because the messages lack non-verbal communication, vary in response time, and tend to be brief.

I've decided to reveal the meta-messages of my own instant messages (and this will be the scope for the rest of this post). This decision has increased the clarity and awareness in my communication and I've been having so much fun ever since. 😁

The following three sections are the main ways I do this. They serve as guides, not rules, and are by no means exhaustive.

Intentions

I'm starting with intentions as I believe they are the fundamental meta-message—there is no message without them.

I define "intention" in the context of a journey. Intentions are the directions one takes to reach their destination.

To let my interlocutors know where I'm going, I choose to reveal my intentions in the beginning of my instant messages and bold them if the app allows it. Here are some examples:

• request: Tell me more 😮🫳🍿
• question: What's the address again? 👀
• ETA: 30 mins

I started thinking about this way of communicating when I combined my experiences of the Glitch communicating in Starbound, HK47 in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and using conventional comments when reviewing code.

I also sometimes decorate intentions with additional information:

• link sharing (spoilers for The Wandering Inn): https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/1fizzqn/ama_with_pirateaba_author_of_the_wandering_inn/
• acceptance (limited): Keen to come, but I can only stay for an hour

But I'd like to point out that I don't always reveal my intentions. I choose not to reveal them when I believe they are clearly stated in the message like in "thank you 🙏" or "I agree 👍".

Values and evaluative language

Next up is values because I want to reveal what I care about and why.

I broadly define a "value" as broad preference(s) that guide decision-making. This definition runs the gamut from the contextually specific to the abstract.

Values are expressed whenever evaluative language is used. I define such language as any word/phrase that includes the appraisal of something. And I specifically say "includes" because evaluative language may do more than just appraise. Here are some examples:

• general appraisal: "worst", "worse", "bad", "okay", "good", "better", "best"
• æsthetic appraisal: "ugly", "beautiful"
• prescription from appraised set of options: "should", "ought to"
• preference from appraised set of options: "prefer"

I choose to reveal my values within chevrons and do so at the end of messages containing evaluative language. This way I can state my evaluation and then reveal <why>. I like to imagine the revealed values being beamed alongside my evaluative language. 🔦

Here are some examples:

• I think Jungle Speed is a better card game than Snap <chaos, complexity>
• Jacaranda flowers are beautiful to me <panicles, soft-colours, bell-shape>
• I believe everyone should talk about their communication expectations <clarity, awareness>
• I prefer setting a time range rather than a fixed time when organising catch-ups <chill, vibes, polychronism>

Similarly with me revealing intentions, I choose not to reveal the value when I believe they are clearly stated in the message like in "simplicity is good" or "kindness is important to me".

Metaphor and conceptual understanding

And finally, metaphors, because, as demonstrated by the book Metaphors We Live by, they demonstrate our conceptual understanding and we use them all the time!

If all conceptual understanding is connected, then I define a metaphor as one or more specific connections between two concepts. Here are some examples:

• Time is money
• All the world's a stage

It's obvious to me that these examples connect time and money, and the world and the stage. They both demonstrate two concepts being joined by the word "is".

But I rarely see metaphors out in the open like this. Instead I tend to encounter concrete verbs and adjectives interacting with abstract nouns. Connections that are a little trickier for me to detect.

I love to express myself with all sorts of metaphors in all sorts of ways, and I also wish to convey my conceptual understanding too. So I choose to do both. 😁

One way I do this is by using Morphs:

• Every moment is steeped in context 🫖
• I like to bathe in tightly-scoped movies 🛀🏻 and soak in every drop of their stories

Another is with GIFs:

But many times I don't find the imagery of what I'm looking for, so I use my words instead:

• Her words washed over the audience {tide flows onto sand}
• The conversation was lonely {a building is overlooked in a busy street}

Just like how I imagine beaming my values with my evaluative language, I use curly braces to reveal my conceptual understanding.

And I choose not to reveal when I believe the connections are clearly stated like when revealing my intentions and values. I also choose not to reveal when the metaphor is conventional like in "he didn't buy that idea".

Evaluative metaphors

There are times when the metaphors I use are thick with evaluation. Using these has the effect of revealing the following:

• The value(s) expressed by the evaluation
• Positive/negative connotation associated with the value(s)
• The conceptual understanding conveyed by the metaphor

I view this as combining evaluative language and metaphor, and, because I want to communicate with awareness, I reveal the meta-message of both.

Here are some evaluative metaphors that someone who highly values purity might say:

1. We sterilised the source code <purity> {a surgeon's fingernails are picked clean}
2. Swearing pollutes the workplace <purity> {carbon monoxide is exhausted}

1 and 2 are examples of positive and negative connotations, respectively. Oh, and for the record, I do not agree with example 2 at all.

Although I choose to reveal both value and metaphor here, I'm currently choosing not to reveal connotations. I believe it can be inferred through what I've already revealed and the context of the conversation.

What I've noticed

I think it's worth noting what I've noticed when I reveal the meta-messages of my instant messages. All of the following assumes that there is no deception.

It's introspective and slow. I frequently combine querying an LLM with my own introspection to help me set the meta-messages.

It's vulnerable. Communication is self-revealing, and to reveal the meta-messages is to go far beyond what I see most people do. There is no plausible deniability to hide in and, at the time of writing, the meta-messages will make your words stand out.

It still allows for mystery. Surprises and withholding of information can still be had, but the revealed meta-messages will inform the interlocutor of this.

Revealing values is useful for comparing and evaluating as it helps focus my communication on where I'm coming from.