The Power of Description

When I was studying cultural anthropology, my professor once gave us a seemingly simple assignment: go out onto the street, stop at some point, look around, and describe in detail what we saw.

As much as I considered myself an attentive observer, I struggled with the task. In fact, I can confidently say that I have rarely encountered a more difficult assignment in my entire life. The more I wrote, the more details I noticed. Every time I thought I had formed a clear and final picture of my surroundings, a new detail emerged, altering the landscape and challenging my description. Was my account complete? Had I overlooked a revelatory detail? Would a reader truly grasp the scene I was describing?

We live in a dense forest of signs, messages, people, and objects. Most of the time, our task is to make sense of this complex world so we can devise effective solutions to both small and significant problems. Assessing a situation is an essential part of decision-making—arguably the most crucial step. Yet, we are often tempted to jump to quick conclusions, whether due to time constraints or external pressure. However, a partial assessment can lead to misguided actions and unintended consequences.

The art of description is a skill we can cultivate—and an important one at that. Describing a context or situation in detail offers several benefits:

• It sharpens our attention.
• It challenges assumptions and reduces biases.
• It underscores the importance of patience, helping us resist the urge to draw hasty conclusions.
• It reveals details and stories that might otherwise go unnoticed.
• It prompts continuous self-questioning: Are we certain we haven’t missed something essential?

Details may seem trivial or insignificant at first glance. Yet, it is often in these overlooked details that we find the key to understanding a context and solving complex problems. As Michel Foucault wrote, “What we have to do with banal facts is to discover—or try to discover—which specific and perhaps original problem is connected with them.”