Recently I was in the middle of a conversation that bounced from topic to topic like ping pong, when someone casually mentioned, “Have you considered…”

There is nothing out of the ordinary about this exchange. I hear this phrase dozens of times a week. So it was a few hours later that I stopped to think, what he really meant was that he disagreed with the consensus, and here is a possible, not definite, reason as to why.

It took me a moment to realize that in my few years in San Francisco, the lexical norm had well ingrained itself in my subconscious. In the cheesiest and sincerest of ways, I believe in the power of words to shape the ways in which we think about problems, establish social dynamics, and plan actions. Not everyone talks like this. Not everyone thinks in the way that causes people to talk like this.

The way we communicate in silicon valley tech culture feels like a delicate balance of universally aspiring to be the ubermensch and carefully protecting the ego. We exalt the search for the inviolate truth. In this quest, say anything, say what you truly believe. There is no room for egos, pretense, or argument ad hominem. At the same time, ours is an era of renewed emphasis on workplace dynamics. We are told that people who trust each other work best together, to empathize with one another, to enforce a “no assholes” rule as part of creating a winning culture.

In combination, we are trying to be more than human – more rational, smarter, more detached from our messy emotions; at the same time, more in tune with our peers, kinder, more considerate. For the most part this effort is long overdue. But at the end of the day, we are human in our messy glory. And meaning gets lost in sensitivity, or humanity gets lost in factuality.

“So, have you considered…?”

This weekend I bought a little fig tree for the back steps. Fig trees ripen two crops, one in the early season that was set the previous fall, and one in the late season. If I had to guess, my baby tree will have all of two figs in its first crop (would have been three, except one unripe fruit got knocked off in transit). I have lived in this apartment since fall of 2012, so really I am kicking myself a bit – if I had thought of this fruit tree idea three years ago, the baby tree would be an adolescent tree by now, and I ought to be looking forward to many pounds of fresh figs this summer.

I suspect the best time to have planted this tree would have been three years ago, but the second best time is now. And if I had been keeping track of the interesting things I have seen, heard, or read over the past three years, maybe – well, who knows. Referencing Dear Sugar, that would be the ghost ship that sailed. So here is a renewed attempt at jotting some thoughts down; at the very least, if we truly think we are living in historical times in San Francisco, I will be my own chronicler.

May we all live in interesting times.