The understanding of context is a critical factor in our thought process, in our daily verbal and written communication, and in our lives. And yet, we so frequently overlook it or misinterpret it. This is a detail that often gets muddled as we struggle to keep pace in our hectic lives. What are the W’s? Those in journalism know them all too well – who, what when, where, why, and sometimes how, i.e. a process, a quantity, or a series of events. A good journalist tries to identify the W’s in the first paragraph. Such an identification establishes the context. But in our day to day activities, we often miss one or more of the “W” questions. It should be no surprise that we have so many in our society searching for answers. We are not asking the right questions. And many times, those questions may be obvious to someone else, but not to ourselves.

Let us start with “who”. I see this frequently in the office/work environment. Someone asked for my opinion, or perhaps a second set of eyes on a document. While I appreciate their confidence in my opinion, they typically approach me abruptly and thrust a document in front of me, like a dagger. Here, would you take a look at this and tell me what you think? And of course they want an answer now. My typical response is to try to set the context by running through the “W” questions, starting with who is your audience? I don’t get past the first question when I get the deer-in-the-headlight look. Somehow, someway, someone got an assignment that just fell out of the sky with no context. Yeh, right. And the 27 page document with a half of a ream worth of attachments that is intended to be an executive summary for a VP — I don’t think so. The point is that any assignment needs to start with understanding the context and answering all of the “W” questions.

I just had a recent example with “what”. My daughter had an early dinner with a friend. As the rest of the family was preparing for dinner, I asked my daughter what she had for dinner. She responded that she had dinner at a local chili parlor. A chili parlor is an identifier (stay tuned for a future post about identifiers), a place, a response to a “where” question. So should I have assumed that because she ate at a chili parlor, she ate chili? I made a mental note and followed up about an hour later with the same question with a little more emphasis on “what” – what did you say you had for dinner? And the response was the same, a local chili parlor. Then I asked if she had chili. No, I had bacon and eggs. Sometimes we don’t hear the question. Sometimes we misinterpret the question, i.e. my daughter. And sometimes, we are just clueless.

Another example of a “what” question occurs when a friend or colleague approaches you with angst on their face and consternation in their body language. They immediately start spewing out random and discombobulated pseudo sentences. It is apparent that something has to come out, like a cow regurgitating the wild onions it just consumed in the south forty pasture. After a minute or two, you interrupt them to ask – what are you talking about? This is a little more obvious. We frequently see it in teenagers when something is really troubling them. And it is OK. They just need someone to listen. The “W’s” are irrelevant.

As I was thinking about this post, my wife came home from work and said, “You won’t believe the phone call we had today!” To establish some context, my wife works for a large corporation with offices throughout the country. Many of their meetings are via conference call. A conference call included my wife and her supervisor. Her supervisor asked why they were on the call. A weak response suggested that the supervisor had been involved in a report similar to that which was the subject at hand, and that maybe she would want to be involved. The supervisor questioned whether or not others had the report, and if she would be required to participate. The response was no. The supervisor responded that she did not need to be on the call, CLICK, and hung up. The initiator of the meeting/call failed to adequately address the question about why particular individuals needed to be involved in the call. The context was a bit fuzzy.

Those that are familiar with my blog site know that the focus is upon the details that enrich our lives. A lack of context is an example of the missing details, the missing “W’s”. If we stop to fill in those missing “W’s”, and the context becomes clear, we not only have a better understanding of our own place in society, but we develop an enhanced relationship with friends, family, and those that have an impact on our lives. Now to add further clarity, where are my bifocals?

Greg

Welcome to Ramblings of a Common Man, a blog about simple observations in our daily lives. Sometimes intrinsic, occasionally with a hint of literary merit, and usually with a message; this blog attempts to capture the essence of that which we often overlook – the simple, subtle details that enrich our lives.

This is not a “how to” blog, like a recipe blog that assures us about the best-ever biscuits that unfortunately squat instead of rise. Nor is it the contemporary version of a slide show of the family vacation full of relatives so carefully orchestrated that the people appear as cardboard cutouts on what was an interesting natural backdrop. And it will probably not have baby pictures either, sorry. This blog is a story, several actually, that may be well composed, but could just as easily be as the title suggests – ramblings, writings that wander in a discursive or aimless manner. And that is OK. That may be the reality of our own perception of life at any given moment.

So why am I writing this? Hey, it is winter in the Midwest and I am bored. But seriously, the fast paced society in which we live forces us to give up something. And one of those “somethings” is paying attention to detail. Toddlers are inquisitive. They pay attention to detail. (Watch for a future post dedicated to toddler’s attention to detail) But as we age, we drift away from the natural curiosity and the detail fades into the background. Today, the constant drone of information in an electronics era further dissolves the detail. We just don’t notice. We are seeing, but not observing. We are hearing, but not listening. And we are sensing, but not perceiving. Our lives have become like a sedimentary rock, but missing a stratum; like a fabric without texture; like a palette without even a hint of a primary color. Part of the irony of this blog is that I am adding to the electronic static that infiltrates our daily lives.

Who am I? I am just an average guy, having grown up in small town America on the edge of the Appalachians. As I write this, I recall an eighth grade honors English class. The teacher was a late middle age woman (she seemed elderly to me at the time), never married, and wore her graying hair in a bun. She rarely smiled and ruled with a strict, no nonsense hand. As an adolescent, I really did not have much interest in this honors class, or any English class for that matter. The only reason that I took this class was that I had a sense that it would help me get to a University, and perhaps help me get through a University with a degree. I had no expectation earlier in life that I would ever write anything that someone other than a teacher might read. And yet here I am. I learned much more in that English class than I realized at the time.

I hope to post a new article about once week, sometimes more, sometimes less.

So again, welcome. Thanks for reading. And if you like this blog, pass it along to your friends.

Greg