When two people meet in conversation, something happens that we rarely reflect on. Both carry an incomplete picture of the other. Both fill in gaps with assumptions. Both filter what is said through prior experience. What emerges between them is a negotiation between two constructions, where neither party truly hears what the other is saying.
We believe we are listening. In reality, we are projecting.
The conversation that never was
Picture two people talking. They are discussing something, perhaps an idea, an event, an opinion. Person A expresses a thought. Before the words have even landed, Person B has already begun processing them through their own experience. A particular phrasing echoes something someone else said in a different context. A tone stirs a feeling that belongs to a previous relationship. A choice of words triggers an assumption about what A really means.
At the same time, A has shaped their thought through their own filters. Perhaps a caution born from how previous conversations have landed. Perhaps an expectation of how B typically reacts. Perhaps an unconscious adjustment toward what A believes B wants to hear.
What flows between them is full of things that do not belong there. Words are spoken, but they are reinterpreted the moment they are received. Both parties walk away with their own version of the conversation, convinced they understood each other. In reality, they have had two parallel dialogues, each with themselves.
The automaticity of projection
This is not the exception. It is the norm. The brain works through pattern recognition and takes shortcuts to process information efficiently. When we encounter another person, the same mechanisms activate. We categorize, fill in gaps, create context based on what we already know. It happens fast and without conscious effort.
The problem is that what we already know is about ourselves, our previous encounters, our own interpretive frameworks. It is not about the person in front of us. We see them through a mirror of our own experience and believe we are seeing them as they are.
The other person is doing the same thing with us.
Two mirrors meet. Two projections. Two incomplete pictures interacting with each other, producing something neither party intended. Misunderstanding becomes the rule, not the exception. Actually understanding each other becomes something that requires deliberate effort.
The cluster of ignorance
I have worked with a mental tool for handling this for a long time. I call it a cluster of ignorance.
Before I enter a conversation, before I listen to someone, I consciously place a cluster of ignorance in my mind. It is an active space that I keep open. A reminder of everything I do not know about the person in front of me and about the subject they are speaking about. Their background, their intent, their inner landscape, their day, their life.
When I listen, I carry this cluster with me. I can brush against it throughout the conversation. Every time I notice myself beginning to revise what is being said through my own experience, every time an interpretation forms automatically, I can return to the cluster. It functions as a buffer between what I hear and what I think I understand.
It is about creating an interval. A space where information is allowed to land before it gets reinterpreted. A moment of genuinely not knowing, before I decide what something means.
Listening like a child
I sometimes describe my way of listening as naive listening. I listen like a child, as though the information were entirely new to me. This way, I let what is being said remain new knowledge, unfiltered, before I revise it through my competence on the matter.
This is where a reaction often surfaces. The word naive triggers something in the person who hears it. They want to correct me, to point out that what I am doing is not naive, as though I have used a word I do not understand the meaning of. In their perception, naive carries a negative ring, signaling simplicity or poor judgment.
For me, naive listening is something else. It is childlike in the best sense of the word: open, receptive, free of predetermined categories. It is a conscious stance, a choice to not let prior experience govern what I hear.
And right there, in that reaction, in the gap between how I use the word and how it is received, we see exactly what this article is about. We have already begun weighing based on our own perceptions of just a few words. The information has already passed through our filters before it has landed.
Listening without revising
The usual process looks like this: someone says something, and the moment the words register, the brain begins comparing them to prior experience. Does this resemble something I have heard before? What did it mean then? What does it mean now? The process is so fast we do not notice it. We think we understand, but we have already translated what was said into something else.
Listening with the cluster active means slowing this process down. Holding information in a state of not knowing a little longer. Resisting the impulse to immediately categorize and interpret. Listening to understand, not to respond.
It means accepting that I do not know what the person means until I have asked. It means accepting that I may not know enough about the subject to immediately evaluate what is being said. It means treating my interpretations as hypotheses, not as truths. It means remaining aware that my picture of the other person and of what they are describing is exactly that, a picture, constructed by me.
The meeting between two who do not know
When I carry the cluster of ignorance with me, something shifts in the encounter. I stop trying to confirm what I already think I know. I stop searching for patterns that fit my existing categories. Instead, I become curious about what I do not understand.
This creates a different kind of conversation. The other person often notices the difference, even if they cannot articulate what it is. Something in the interaction becomes lighter. There is more room. Less of the invisible friction that arises when two projections collide.
The ideal encounter would be one where both parties carry their ignorance consciously. Where both acknowledge that they are seeing an incomplete picture. Where dialogue becomes a shared exploration rather than a negotiation between two constructions.
We cannot control how others approach a conversation. But we can change how we approach it ourselves. By consciously placing ignorance in the mind, we open the possibility of actually hearing what someone is saying. Of meeting the other person as they are, not as we believe them to be.
Training ignorance
Carrying the cluster of ignorance requires the ability to analyze your own thinking, ideally in real time. It is possible to process afterward, but then it is important not to assert things during the conversation that have not been thought through. It demands a different kind of honesty, a willingness to say: I hear what you are saying and I want to give you a better answer, let me think about this for a while.
Responding with thought rather than speed is a strength. It is a strength to recognize that a considered answer takes time.
The training begins with actively reminding yourself of what you do not actually know. About the person in front of you. About the subject being discussed. Everything I think I know before the conversation is guesswork, because this situation is unique in itself. This person, in this moment, with these words, has never existed before.
When we begin to see every encounter as new, as something that requires its own understanding rather than being fitted into previous patterns, something changes. We stop confirming what we already believe. We start actually listening.
Ignorance as competence
There is a paradox here. We typically regard knowledge as valuable and ignorance as a deficit. But in the meeting with another human being, conscious ignorance is an asset. The person who knows too much about the other, too quickly, has already closed the door to genuine understanding.
The cluster of ignorance is a way of keeping that door open. It is a competence that can be trained, a disposition that can be cultivated. It requires accepting the discomfort of not knowing, resisting the brain's urge to quickly categorize and conclude.
In the interval that emerges lies the possibility of a different kind of meeting. One where two people can actually reach each other, beyond the projections and reflections. It does not happen automatically. It happens when we choose to remain unknowing long enough to see.
This article is part of the series Metacognitive Reflections. See also: How we receive and process information: Training ourselves to understand our own ignorance and Cognitive Bias in Social Perception: Why we misclassify people.
