The Illegible Map
You see it so clearly.
The connections. The patterns. The way this thing over here relates to that thing over there. It's obvious to you—once you saw it, you couldn't unsee it.
And you cannot seem to make anyone else see it.
You explain. They nod politely. You try different angles. They say "interesting" in the tone that means "I don't get it." You simplify. Something essential gets lost. You add detail. Their eyes glaze over.
The insight is real. You're sure of it. But it's trapped inside your head, illegible to everyone else.
Why Legibility Fails
Illegibility usually comes from one of two sources:
The insight is genuinely hard. Some patterns require a lot of context to see. You've accumulated that context over years. You're asking people to compress years of background into a conversation.
The expression doesn't match the insight. You understand something, but understanding and communicating are different skills. The words you're using don't carry the meaning you intend. The structure of your explanation doesn't match the structure of the insight.
Often it's both. A hard insight, poorly expressed. The difficulty of the idea provides cover for not addressing the weakness of the communication.
The painful possibility: sometimes the insight isn't as significant as it feels. The pattern you see might be real but trivial, or real but obvious to anyone with different context. Illegibility can be a sign that there's less there than you think.
What Legibility Looks Like
The Illegible Map becomes legible through translation, not repetition.
- Find the entry point. What do they already understand that connects to what you're trying to show? Start there. Build a bridge from their map to yours.
- Use their vocabulary. Not your preferred terms—theirs. The goal isn't to teach them your language. It's to help them see the pattern using whatever language they already have.
- Make it concrete first. Abstract patterns become visible through specific examples. Instead of explaining the general structure, show one instance. Then another. Let them infer the pattern rather than asserting it.
- Check for reception. Ask them to say it back. Not "does that make sense?"—they'll say yes to be polite. Ask them to explain what you said in their own words. If they can't, you haven't transferred the understanding yet.
- Accept partial transmission. They might never see it exactly as you do. Their version of your insight will be different. If it's useful to them, that's success—even if it's not the full pattern you see.
Legibility is a communication problem, not a truth problem. Your insight can be real and valuable and still trapped if you can't express it.