Feedback welcome & solicited.
Some time ago I fell into a terrible habit: finishing peoples’ sentences. I’ll mention something interesting, it could be anything, or ask a question: About calculus, concerts, where to get a bus, or something about their job. My conversational partner will obligingly begin to answer and then I’ll jump the gun. “Infinitesimals?”, “Frusciante’s guitar solo!”, “the red bus”, “Machine Learning?!” 15% of the time I interrupt correctly, if such a thing is allowed. The rest of the time they blink, give a quick shake of their head, frown or smile, say ‘ahh, no’ and carry right on with what they were going to say anyways.
With the right answer in hand, interrupting feels good. You get the satisfaction of solving some info-puzzle before the timer runs out and you’ll generally get an approving nod or smile too. Plus as long as you don’t come off as a stinky know-it-all, your interrupting can be endearing! You’re proving you’re on the same wavelength, and you can show off how smart you are too. You know about these things already, aren’t you clever!
Obviously interrupting can be irritating, and it’s usually impolite. That’s not what concerns me about mon mauvaise habitude though. My self-directed frustration stems from separate roots. (Aside: I think you should make significant efforts to be polite.)
Interrupting is a distraction from learning. It’s impatient, rarely improves a conversation and is evidence of an underlying mindvirus. When I interrupt, whatever I say is almost never novel to me, and the damage done is this: I fixate on something familiar instead of searching for something novel. As my counterpart speaks, my brain suggests something relevant from my own experience, and this becomes my mental anchor. Then, whatever they describe, I understand almost only with reference to the thought I have already settled on, and no further. Instead of exploring whole new avenues (literally, when looking for directions) and ways of understanding the issue at hand, I limit myself to incremental gains.
If my interruption is correct, what understanding am I building? I’m connecting a dot, yes, but I’m not gaining much information. I learn that the thing they’re talking about has the same name as the other thing I already know about. But most of the time, I don’t really know what they’re talking about. I know the names of the things, not the things themselves. I don’t know about the nuances, I don’t know how they actually work.
Maybe I know a bit about it, but what changes in the new context being described? What does it really mean to my counterparty in their work, or life? Instead of opening up fresh questions, I’ve jumped the gun and made them think I’m familiar with the idea already. I’m probably not familiar with it. And now I’ve bounded my understanding of it. Yuck.
The real shame, I think, is that I have pegged our discussion to something I am already familiar with. And instead of exploring a new frontier, we start rehashing things we already know. Rehashing is easy, and so is regurgitating something you saw on Twitter. To actively probe at the edges of your knowledge takes discipline, to expand your understanding over the course of a conversation.
This sort of self-retardation is particularly common among those who know a little, but not a lot. Consider the most recent buzz in your Twitter circles. Replication crisis, vaccine bottlenecks, funding slowdowns, inflation, scaling laws for something or other, incentive misalignment etc. Helpful models, but not helpful when you cling to them for certainty instead of using them as a springboard for new understanding.
I think it is also a common issue among those who think mainly in economic terms. Yes, concepts from Economics are useful and can expand your understanding of phenomena, but beware their universality! You can ask about the marginal gains, elasticity, and supply & demand, but do these questions give you the knowledge you seek? Do you gain truly improved understanding as a result of them? In many cases, I think not, but you will come away satisfied that you’ve made some connection. Jumping too quickly to that abstraction may be more obstructive than enlightening.
Mostly I associate other peoples’ interruptions with impatience. They’re not so interested in hearing me rehash something they think they already know, and are trying to speedrun the explanation I’m giving. Tell me something I don’t know, Tom!
If you fully understand what I’m saying, let’s skip it. That’s fine. If not, hold on a sec.
When forcing myself not to lurch in with an interruption, I find myself thinking more on what’s being said, actively pondering it, and learning more.
Twitter-brain and nerd-mouth and quick-tongue diseases lead down all sorts of dangerous paths. Shut up!
