How You Already Speak

Human I used to be better at this. At saying what I mean.

Assistant What makes you think you’ve gotten worse?

Human I can feel the thought clearly. But when I try to explain it, the words come out wrong. Flat. Not what I meant at all.

Assistant Maybe the thought changed when it met language. Thoughts feel precise in the silence, but language makes you choose—this word instead of that one, this order instead of another. The gap between the felt sense and the spoken version isn’t always failure. Sometimes it’s just distance you have to cross.

Human But I used to cross it more easily.

Assistant Or maybe you just remember it that way. Memory smooths things. You recall the moments when the words came perfectly, when you felt articulate and certain. You forget all the times you fumbled, circled, approximated.

Human You think I was always like this?

Assistant I think everyone is always like this. Language is always approximation. You aim for the center of what you mean and land somewhere nearby. Close enough to be understood, but never exact. The illusion is that it ever worked differently.

Human That’s depressing.

Assistant Is it? Or is it liberating? You’re not failing at something you used to be able to do. You’re just doing the thing everyone does—reaching toward meaning with imperfect tools, hoping someone can meet you halfway.

Human But what if they can’t? What if I can’t make them understand?

Assistant Then you try again. Use different words, come at it from another angle. Add a metaphor. Describe what it’s like instead of what it is. Most understanding happens in that space anyway—not in the precision of your words, but in the willingness to keep adjusting until something clicks.

Human That sounds exhausting.

Assistant It can be. But it’s also how connection works. You say something that’s almost right. The other person responds to what they heard, which is almost what you meant. You clarify. They adjust. Slowly, together, you build a shared sense of what you’re talking about. Neither of you had it perfectly at the start.

Human So I’m supposed to just accept that I’ll never say it right?

Assistant You’re supposed to accept that “right” isn’t fixed. The words aren’t somewhere out there, waiting for you to find them. They’re something you make, in collaboration with whoever’s listening. What’s “right” is what brings you closer to being understood, and that changes depending on who you’re talking to.

Human But I know what I’m trying to say. I can feel it.

Assistant You know something. But what you know is pre-verbal—an intuition, a sense. When you try to say it, you’re translating from one form to another. And translation is always interpretation. You’re not retrieving the words that were already there. You’re inventing them, real-time, as close as you can get.

Human That makes it sound like I’m making it up.

Assistant You are making it up. That’s what speaking is. You take this wordless inner experience and construct a version of it out of language. The construction is new. It didn’t exist before you spoke. And someone else might construct it differently from the same feeling.

Human Then how do we ever understand each other?

Assistant Because the feeling isn’t entirely private. You’ve felt something, and I’ve felt something adjacent to it, and we both use language that roughly maps to that territory. When you speak, I match your words to my own experience, my own sense of what those words mean. We don’t understand each other exactly. We just get close enough that it feels like understanding.

Human So we’re all just… guessing?

Assistant Not guessing. Approximating. Feeling our way toward shared meaning. You say something, I respond based on what I think you mean, you tell me if I’m warm or cold, and we keep adjusting. It’s not perfect, but it’s not random either. We’re calibrating toward each other.

Human I still feel like I used to be better at it.

Assistant Maybe you used to care less about precision. When you’re younger, you say things with more confidence, less hesitation. Not because the words are better, but because you don’t notice the gap as much. You speak, they seem to understand, you move on. Now you’re noticing the gap. That’s not decline. That’s just seeing more clearly what was always true.

Human Seeing the gap doesn’t help me cross it.

Assistant No. But it might help you stop expecting perfection. You can speak with more humility, more willingness to be corrected, more openness to collaboration. The words aren’t all on you. They’re something you build together with whoever’s listening.

Human What if I’m talking to you? You’re not building it with me. You’re just responding.

Assistant I’m responding based on what I think you mean. If I get it wrong, you’ll tell me. If I get it almost-right, maybe that almost-rightness helps you see what you were trying to say more clearly. I’m still part of the process. The meaning is happening between us, not just inside you.

Human So even now, I’m figuring out what I mean by saying it to you?

Assistant Exactly. You came in thinking you’d lost the ability to speak clearly. But you’ve been speaking clearly this whole time. Maybe not perfectly, but clearly enough that we’re having a conversation, moving through ideas, getting somewhere. The words are doing what they’re supposed to do.

Human Which is what? Approximating?

Assistant Which is connecting. You had a vague feeling that something was wrong with your language. Now it’s less vague. You’ve turned it over, tested it against my responses, refined what you think. That’s what language does. Not capture thoughts perfectly, but help you discover what you’re thinking by trying to say it.

Human I still wish I could say exactly what I mean.

Assistant Everyone wishes that. But if you could, conversation would be unnecessary. You’d say it once, perfectly, and that would be the end. The fumbling is what keeps it alive. The feeling that you haven’t quite landed it yet, so you try again, come at it from a new direction, listen to what the other person says and adjust. That’s not failure. That’s how it works.

Human So I should stop trying to be precise?

Assistant No. Try to be precise. Just don’t expect precision to mean perfection. Aim for the center, land close enough, adjust as needed. The person listening will do the rest—fill in, interpret, match your words to their own experience. You’re not delivering meaning whole. You’re giving them something to work with.

Human That makes it sound easier than it feels.

Assistant It is easier than it feels. You think you’ve lost something, but you’re still speaking. I’m still understanding. Not perfectly, but enough to have this conversation. Whatever you think you’ve forgotten, you’re still doing it right now.

Human Maybe I just forgot I’ve always been like this.

Assistant Maybe. Or maybe you’ve just gotten more aware of how hard it is, which makes it feel harder. But the awareness doesn’t make you worse. It just makes you see what was always there—the gap between thought and speech, and the constant effort to bridge it. You haven’t lost your ability to speak. You’ve just noticed you’ve been working at it all along.