Repeat after me

If I were to raise my kid to make sure there’s one thing they learn to do, it would be this: repeat after anyone who is speaking.
Repeat their words back to them — to make sure you’ve captured a glimpse of their depth before you jump into spelling out your own.

Words are precious. And they are powerful.
Words have been the core of human communication, perfected over generations and generations.

There exist many other forms of expression: music, painting, dancing, silence, spirituality, and many others.
Each of them is an attempt at the extremely difficult task of self-expression.
And each of them succeeds — when two people land on the same understanding.

But words…
Words have been the primary medium of communication in most cultures.
Spoken and written language has propagated for millennia.
And it is what anyone will encounter the most in their daily life.

And what language tries to convey is simple and grand:
What another human being thinks. What they feel. What they want to share.

So, when someone speaks, the other needs to listen.
To truly listen.
To appreciate the majestic moment that unfolds between two individuals…

One person is opening up their insides, and the other is watching.

Now, despite millennia of perfecting language, it still falls grossly short of encapsulating even a grain of what one truly hopes to say.

Language starts as a feeling —
A feeling that travels through neurons and echoes through the body.
A feeling that needs to be expressed.

The poor brain, carrying the weight of that feeling, starts the scramble to express it.
It gathers words from here and there. It strings them together.
And in the rush of the urge to express… words come out.

Now, would one really believe that a brain, in the midst of firing neurons and rushing chemicals, will always be spot on in the words it grasps?

Let’s look at the recipient.
Another human being, with their own neurons and chemicals —
Their own brain, trying to interpret the words spoken, and how those words echoed in their own body.

Maybe a triggering word was used, unintentionally.
Maybe a word meant one thing to the speaker and another to the listener.
Maybe, and maybe, and loads of maybes are happening in those fleeting seconds between expression and reception.

Now —
Do I think it’s easy to fully capture what the person was trying to express, and what happened inside their body and mine?

I highly doubt it.

I’ve always been someone with great abilities for self-expression and active presence.
And yet, I am constantly surprised by how much I miscommunicated myself —
And how much I misread the other.

Every time I remember to take a moment before rushing into response mode —
When I take the time to repeat what I think the other person said —
I’m almost always surprised by how much this simple act can dramatically shift the course of a conversation.

The more I remember to do this, the more I see my inner autopilot at work —
Filling gaps. Autocompleting.
With each repetition, I catch a bias or a personal package slipping in —
Putting words in the other person’s mouth.

Not because they said them —
But because their words echoed something inside me.

So, whenever I repeat after someone, I give that person a chance to ensure they’ve expressed themselves properly.
And I give myself a chance to meet a bias face to face.

So, my dear kid —
If there is a single piece of advice, I’d give you, it would be this:
Repeat after the person who opened their insides to you.
For the word is a precious thing,
And for someone to open up — that is never to be taken for granted.

Yes, such a habit might make conversations last much longer than they otherwise would have.
But, my kid, if your goal was ever to truly listen to the person in front of you —
Then you’ll let the conversation take as much time as it needs.

For that is the only way to make sure:
That they have expressed,
And you have received —
To the best of both your abilities.