Honesty may be the key to successful communication. At first, this seems so obvious as to be idiotic. Tell people what you want them to know, right? This is rarely what happens. We begin second guessing thought processes before we utter the first word of a conversation with someone. We try to take their biases, mood, and intelligence into account, as well as their OWN tendency to attempt to second guess others. After all this crap, what actually spills from your mouth is an impromptu psyche-bomb, designed to splatter your thoughts onto someone's brain whether they like it or not. This is all automatic and mostly subconscious, otherwise conversation would be either very slow or very honest.

As an example, let's say we want to tell our best friend something: we aren't planning to attend a party they're throwing because we're pretty sure that we won't have any fun. The exact reason could vary - other people attending, fatigue level, whatever - something slightly uncool. It is rare that I would hear someone come out and just say it: "Dude, I don't want to go to your party. I think I won't have fun there because _____." We don't want to be contradicted, and we're already guessing that the other person will try to convince us to go despite whatever we say. We don't want to hurt our friend's feelings, and we're trying to design an answer which will seem polite and not offensive or accusatory. What comes out instead is something like, "I wish I could go, but I've got to get up early for work," or "I have to go home and do [x]" or some other indirect reasoning. It's almost the truth. And that's for our best friend. Less familiar people get much more intensely reprocessed versions of reality.

People sense simple honesty, I think. The signal elements involved elude my understanding, but I see much warmer and understanding reactions when expressing the unfiltered truth as I know it. Perhaps the most raw communications are recognized for what they are (via facial expression, tone of voice, posture, or other uknowns), and bypass the usual filters, creating sympathy and trust. When successful, this is the most efficient form of communication I know of. Even when I am being insensitive or misinformed about something, I find out right away (especially if the other person responds with simple honesty). It's very liberating to be understood. Being misunderstood when you are starightforward as possible, though, is severely upsetting.

Blunt honesty and witty conversation seem incompatible at first. Many times I will feign incomprehension for the express purpose of lightening mood, whether for humor or ambience. Sometimes I like saying that I act dimwitted because I want people to underestimate me. This is not really true. Instead, I want people to feel comfortable around me, and in the past I had learned that people minded being around humorously foolish people less than they did coldly reasoning folks. This isn't to say that I am, by nature, completely humorless. It's that my natural sense of humor is pretty dry, and many people don't seem to think it funny. All in all, "forced" humor is just as awkward as deadpan rationality.

My other sense of humor is "completely inappropriate", and I'm only just recently discovering who can and can't tell when I'm being an ass because it's fun (a more intellectual sounding way to put it is, "I find it amusing". Bwahhh). Some people say that one should never be an ass. These people are being (hypocritical) asses. Oops. You must have the capacity to be an ass in order to act in your own interest. It is vital.

I am not trying to be clever or thoughtful or profound. I'm trying to make the words come out without slanting them towards an agenda, or blunting them to be less caustic. When it comes down to it, I don't think my base thoughts and feelings are generally any harsher (or softer) or ignorant (or informed) than other people's. I hope that I can stop trying to be something. I want to see what I do and say. What kind of person am I?

Although I'd rather not be into posturing and naysaying. I seem to wind up doing things like that, occasionally. Woe betide you if you are working on a project with me and I think you are doing something wrong. I try to say so in the simplest terms possible, but I detect my ego giving little shark teeth to my words. I want to be right.

Is it the zen buddhists that say desire is the root of all suffering? I think they're right. Avoid jumping to the obvious conclusion; I also think everyone needs some suffering.