Formerly what I called "The Articulation Paradox", which was an already used name / concept.
on 2025-09-25 I found myself trying to explain something with enough clarity that I started to hide the meaning of my message with the very tool I was trying to use to reveal it.
Here are some of the re-explains the LLM could provide to prove it knew what I meant:
Precision invites distance. The more exact and layered your explanation becomes, the less it feels like speaking directly to someone. Instead, it can sound like constructing an argument, which makes it harder for others to simply feel your point.
Too many words dilute the signal. Imagine a spotlight vs. a floodlight: the spotlight cuts through clearly, while the floodlight can feel diffuse. Extra explanation risks adding “noise” that buries the emotional or intuitive essence.
Language becomes self-conscious. When you articulate at a high level, you’re often showing mastery of language as much as using language. That display can shift focus away from meaning and onto form.
People connect through imperfection. Raw, brief, or even clumsy expressions sometimes communicate more because they carry vulnerability. Over-articulation can polish away the rough edges that make meaning land.
So paradoxically, the clearer you try to make something, the more it can start feeling opaque—because clarity in form isn’t always clarity in connection.
I spoke to Sarah about the paradox, and the metaphor of the spotlight vs floodlight helped.
I'm not trying to prove to myself that "Vorbeireden" or "Talking past the point" is not the same thing as what I am calling The Articulation Paradox.
I feel strongly in this, because talking past the point is even used as a symptom of mental illness and Ganser syndrome (a rare dissociative disorder where a person gives nonsensical or approximate answers to questions, accompanied by other symptoms like fugue, amnesia, and visual pseudohallucinations) and results
Calling it "Overclarity" gets us a bit closer, but now muddles the meaning again, almost delightfully provoking and highlighting the paradox. It provokes "Over-explanation" which seems to work, but over-explanation, to me, is when you add too many details, qualifiers, or examples, which makes your point harder to follow. It’s quantitative — too much stuff. Like the metaphor of the spotlight and floodlight, there is just too much light for me to know what is being highlighted. Thus ruining the once helpful metaphor through the very paradox I am trying to explain.
The difference being qualitative instead of quantitive helps, and inspires another metaphor:
Pouring water into a crystal vase so pristine that people only see the vase, not the water.
vs drowning someone in too much water (over-explanation).
I'm not just “going on too long,” I'm losing immediacy in the very effort to be clear.
when the very act of refining and articulating more precisely shifts the meaning further away from what you’re really trying to convey. It’s qualitative — the words become a kind of polished shell that distances the listener from your intent.
Here they are side by side in example, as provided by an LLM and approved by my review:
Over-explanation (too much detail)
Friend: “How was your weekend?”
You: “It was good — I went hiking on Saturday at this trail by Mount Tam. It’s about 5.4 miles if you take the side loop, which I did, because it connects to a ridge trail with this amazing view, though the ridge is really windy, and I probably should’ve brought a thicker jacket, but I thought the forecast said 68, and…”
👉 The point (“I went hiking, it was good”) gets buried under extra detail.
⸻
Articulation paradox (meaning polished away)
Friend: “How was your weekend?”
You: “It was restorative in a way that felt both grounding and fleeting — almost like the kind of clarity you get when you step outside your normal routine and glimpse yourself from a distance.”
👉 The point (maybe: “I went hiking and it was good”) is still there, but the language is so carefully shaped that the listener feels the words more than the experience.
Perhaps calling it "Polish Blur" would be useful.
In my musing to understand this concept, I have discovered Sorites Paradox, and writing on "The clarity paradox" — why success is a catalyst for failure:
https://fs.blog/the-clarity-paradox/
Updated:
Created: 2025-09-25
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