My mom used to tell me that the problem with me having studied literature in college was that I became a critic instead of a writer.
She’s right. As an English major my job was to read a million books in order to analyze, criticize and deconstruct everything. My job was to read the greatest writers to ever walk the earth and digest the way in which they perfected their craft. I was to drown in other people’s genius. That can be the kiss of death for an aspiring writer. I went from having poems published in a newspaper in Nicaragua to winning second place in a poetry contest at the University of Texas at Austin to never writing again. I just couldn’t do it anymore– I couldn’t offend the art of writing with my shoddy attempts at genius. I couldn’t possibly join the ranks of Hemingway and Gogol and Dostoyevsky and Steinbeck so I just… stopped.
But anyways. I now see this as a trend in my life. Most recently, it has happened to me as a comedian. The more comedy I participate in and the more professional comedians I get to know, the more I am becoming a comedy critic. Furthermore, because I consider comedy to be an exalted form of communicating, I am becoming a critic of communication in general.
Take sketch comedy, for example. When we get together to read and vote on scripts, we are looking for the key factors that make an excellent sketch. We look for jokes that hit hard and fast, we look for smart language and innovative twists. We demand that ideas be presented in a concise manner and have no qualms in trimming the fat wherever we find it. We don’t want to present sketches that rely on too much exposition or jokes that are too in love with themselves. We want to get in, make people laugh, and get out.
Comedians are the most unforgiving critics because they spend their life mining language for true gems that they can craft into jokes. They hack and hack and hack away at an idea until it is just a morsel of hilarious truth. In a 10-minute stand-up set, there’s no time for meandering ideas and half-chewed cud. In a 5-minute sketch, there’s no time for rambling dialogues.
I have taken these principles of communication and become a pretty ruthless critic in all areas of my life. At work, I get impatient when ideas and tasks are presented in a way that I consider lazy or amateurish. When a co-worker is talking to me I analyze the way they communicate and think to myself is that really the best way to get your point across? When I get an email I sit there and think of 10 ways I could have written the same email but better. I want everyone to get in, get the job done, and get out.
While it’s great to strive for perfect communication skills, perfection as a concept itself is problematic. First of all, perfection is impossible. Second, you’ve got to lighten up. There is nothing wrong with a little wandering. If there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to tell a story. There is more than one way to get to the point. And sometimes, there is no point, and that is ok, too.
What I tend to forget is that sometimes it’s not about the message, but the messenger. It’s frequently been the case that I meet someone new and I immediately feel like I can’t stand them because of the way they communicate. They’ll do things like finish your sentence for you or forget to listen or talk ad-nauseum about this or that. They’ll focus too much on being nice instead of saying what they really want to say. They’ll pussy foot around their point and never get to it. They don’t know how to ask for what they want. They’ll rely on too many emoticons while chatting online. All of these things drive me crazy. But it’s also been the case that after a while I get used to the way they communicate and I am able to look past that and enjoy the person for who they are.
The bigger of a critic I become, the more I have to learn to chill out and lighten up, as my mom would say. I have to remember to not lose sight of the person forrest because I’m too busy criticizing their communication trees. Besides, I’m no expert. I’m the person who stopped writing altogether because the criticism became too much to bear. I can’t also just stop communicating altogether, and become a social pariah while I’m at it, just because I’m on the quest for flawless communication.
Talons and Skills 