On Clarity

This week I have been thinking about clarity a lot and how clarity appears in different places in our lives. For example, clarity as opposed to brain fog when you are not feeling well or going through a pain flare. Or the need for clarity in the ways we try to communicate with our close people and surroundings. How the way that we are clear with colleagues may be very different than the lack of clarity needed with our close friends who just get what we are trying to say with a gesture, a look, a smile. 

It is hard in these early months of 2025 to have clarity. This is why I am writing this blog a few days early as I seem to have the clarity of thought and a framework of ideas that I want to share on this topic now and I am not sure if I will have that same clarity this weekend. I just went for a slow walk around the block before this, for clarity.

The etymology of clarity is also pretty great. From the Old French for brightness, it also has a figurative definition that connects to celebrity. Clarity feels like a thing in academic and pedagogical spaces that we need. We talk about framing and writing clear instructions for assessments and how to share our goals for an assignment with clarity. Like for the class I am teaching now, which is professional communications, the title and learning outcomes would suggest that this would be a class with group work, where you have to attend as often as possible and engage with your peers, that it is important to have ways and strategies to work as a team. However, for some that may not be clear, and you have to find ways to emphasize that again and again. 

Clarity is also something that teaching teams and staff look for in the guidance given by their departments and institutions. But a lot of what is happening right now is very unknown. The lack of clarity, the lack of transparency, the lack of even being able to guess next steps, make things stressful, difficult to plan, in a state of perpetual anticipatory. 

There are also times when the clarity is there, but is not said out loud. Where it is clear what is going to happen next, that your gut says a thing, that others feel it too, and then the discussion becomes do we validate those feelings that seem clear, or do we wait for words to be written or articulated and shared. 

Last weekend I spent some time trying to gain clarity on an article I am writing. We also talk a lot in academe about "gaining clarity" - that this is something that can magically appear if we just read more, research more, talk it out more. But I have also had some email exchanges this week, and phone calls where it was clear that we were all struggling to gain clarity and that sometimes that requires the kind of energy and time, and wellness, that folk don't really have at the moment.

So this weekend if you have a chance, maybe reflect on clarity. Are you being clear in your asks to your students, your friends, your peers? Are you being clear with yourself about your goals, your wants, your boundaries? If you are responsible for organizing conferences, are you being clear to the participants in terms of what they need to do and by when? Sometimes it is in those moments, where a thing is said or shared in the ways that the other person needs to hear it, that you have given someone else the clarity that they really needed.