The Importance of Explanation of our needs

One of the most wonderful aspects of being a baby is that our minds can be read by those around us. People in our immediate vicinity will make educated guesses about what we intend to do without our having to say anything – and, in most cases, they will be correct. They'll properly guess that we're hungry for some milk, that the sun is shining in our eyes, that it's time for a nap, or that we'd like to jiggle the keys once more.

This may be really fulfilling and significant to us when we are young, but it might set us up for unrealistic expectations for the rest of our life as we grow older. It has the potential to instill in us the belief that anyone — particularly someone who claims to care about us — should be able to discover our deepest dreams and wishes without our having to say too much. We can remain silent since they will read our thoughts.

This explains the prevalent propensity to believe that people understand what we intend and want even when we haven't explicitly stated our intentions or desires to them. It's natural for us to expect that our lover will understand what we're furious about, that our friends would understand where our sensitivities lay, and that our colleagues will intuitively understand how we want things done in presentations.

Moreover, we assume that if they don't, it must be a sign that they are being wicked, purposefully obtuse, or stupid — and that we are therefore justified in falling into a sulk, that curious pattern of behavior in which we punish people for having committed crimes whose precise nature we refuse to disclose to them.

Although we have made great strides, we have lost sight of the fundamental value of teaching somewhere along the line of our development. For those under the age of eighteen, teaching isn't a specialized vocation that focuses on transmitting knowledge about science and the humanities. Every day of our lives is an opportunity to practice this skill, and the subject on which we must laboriously and patiently become experts and deliver 'lessons' is called 'Ourselves': what we like, what we're afraid of, what gives us hope for the future, what we want from the world, and how we search for things to be formatted...

Babies, for all of their brilliance and charm, are only concerned with a handful of issues; the ordinary adult, on the other hand, has thousands of very firm opinions on a wide range of issues, ranging from the proper way to govern a country to the proper way to close the refrigerator door. We should make an effort to offer a few'seminars' on our points of view before allowing ourselves to become bitter and morose in our attitudes.

However, it is reasonable — in a sense — if we should fail so miserably in our educational responsibilities. We're not necessarily being sluggish or rude in our behavior. Strangers truly requiring us to walk them through yet another chapter of the complex instruction manual of our deep selves is beyond comprehension. We didn't have to deal with any of it at the beginning. The possibility exists that we are more nostalgic for our childhood than we had previously imagined.