There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought it was almost romantic – to not be understood by the world. I’ve always feared being simplified, being put into a box, labelled as this or that. Somewhere along the way, I even started to like the idea of being misunderstood.
It felt like a kind of freedom. I didn’t have to explain myself, didn’t have to make things easier for anyone else to hold. There was something about that distance that made the work feel untouched, almost protected. As long as it wasn’t fully understood, it couldn’t be reduced. Because that’s what people do.
It starts small. Someone misreads what you’ve made – something that felt complete to you when you made it. You tell yourself they’re just interpreting it differently.
And then, at some point, you notice something else.
Not just misreading – but reduction.
Not just misreading – but reduction.
Someone takes what you’ve done, and turns it into a version that fits them. Because it’s easier to take something complex and reduce it into something familiar than to sit with it as it is. So your work becomes a version of itself – cleaner, flatter, easier to talk about. You start hearing it reflected back to you in ways that don’t feel entirely wrong, but not entirely right either. Like something has been translated, but a part of it didn’t survive the translation.
And for a while, you try to close that gap. You explain more. You adjust how you say things. You look for ways to make it clearer, more accessible, easier to grasp. You rewrite sentences that were already true, just so they can be received more easily. You soften edges that didn’t need softening. You remove parts that might confuse someone, even if those parts were the most honest. You tell yourself this is part of the process – that communication matters, that being understood matters.
But somewhere in that effort, something shifts. Not in the work itself, but in your relationship to it. You start noticing how much of your attention is no longer on the thing you’re trying to create, but on how it will be received. Whether it will land. Whether it will be understood. You read your own work not to feel it, but to anticipate how someone else might read it. And slowly, almost without realizing it, the work begins to bend. Not dramatically, but enough. Just enough to make it easier for someone else to hold.
And it starts asking for something in return. Not from them, but from you. A softening here, a clarification there, a small adjustment that feels harmless in isolation but adds up over time. You pause before saying something exactly as it is, and choose a version that will land better. You explain things you don’t really want to explain, just so no one feels left out. You begin to carry the burden of making sure everyone can follow. And before you know it, you’re no longer protecting the integrity of the work – you’re negotiating it.
And in doing that, something essential begins to slip. Not visibly, not all at once, but enough for you to feel it when you sit with it alone. The work still looks complete. It still reads well. But something about it feels slightly displaced, like it no longer belongs fully to the place it came from.
At some point, you begin to see the pattern more clearly. Not everyone is going to meet you where the work is. Some will step away. Not because the work is lacking, but because it asks something from them they’re not willing to give. Attention. Patience. A certain kind of openness. And those are not things you can force. No amount of explaining can make someone stay with something they’re not ready to sit with.
And that’s where the cost becomes personal. Not in the misreading, not in the reduction – but in what it asks you to let go of. The expectation that your work will be received the way you experienced it. The hope that the people closest to you will immediately see what you see. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, even they hold only a part of it. And you’re left with something that feels complete to you, but incomplete in how it’s received.
I used to think being understood was part of the work. Now I’m starting to see it might be something you give up to do the work honestly.
That doesn’t make it easy. There are still moments where the instinct to explain returns. Even now, while writing this, I can feel that instinct. The urge to make this land better. To shape a sentence so it reaches more people. To adjust something that was already true, just so it travels further. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
But I’m beginning to see that the more I try to carry the work toward being understood, the further it moves away from what it was meant to be.
So I’m learning to leave it where it is. Not unfinished, not unclear – but unadjusted. To let it exist as it came, without shaping it for every possible way it might be received. Some will misunderstand it. Some will reduce it. Some will walk away from it entirely.
But even then, something in them responds. Not always in the way you intended. Not always in a way they can explain. But something lands. Something shifts, resists, or stays with them longer than they expect.
And maybe that’s enough.
Not to be understood in the way you meant it, but to be felt in the way it needed to be.
