Compact and Differentiated

Often despite differing worldviews a couple remains compatible with high intimacy and functionality because they differentiate concepts similarly. For example, the way they distinguish the compactness of a ‘myth’ into the component aspects of ‘story’, ‘philosophy’ and ‘religion’ might be similar, though one person may have a religious worldview and the other an atheistic.

Since my wife’s worldview is often more compact than my own, I have learned compact isn’t less intelligent, less modern, or less enlightened, just different, more holistic; while I easily see categories, systems and dynamics, she easily understands the shading of subtlety, inference and the bigger picture. More fascinatingly, my wife will frequently understand a differentiated concept intellectually yet pay it little attention because the concept does not have clear symbolic significance or meaning to her. Thus while my wife understands people might do different things than she for the same interior reasons, those people often remain meaningfully indistinguishable to her from people who do not have the same interior reasons as she.

And this is the point: while symbols can be transparent and meaningful across differing worldviews and even different levels of compactness and differentiation, if a love symbol is not clear enough for your partner to understand it, then the symbol is meaningfully indistinguishable from your not loving your partner at all. Thus good relationship communication isn’t only self expression well enough for you to understand, or even well enough for your partner to understand; good relationship communication is self expression well enough for you to understand your partner.