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Code-switching — adjusting how you speak and present yourself depending on the room — is a legitimate tool. I want to be clear about this before I describe its costs.
The cost I am describing is not the code-switching itself. It is what happens when code-switching becomes so comprehensive and continuous that you lose the thread back to your own thinking.
This happens gradually. You adjust the delivery to be heard. You adjust the vocabulary to fit the room. You emphasize certain aspects and downplay others. Across enough rooms and years, the adjustments compound. You find yourself not quite sure what you actually think — separate from the version that gets expressed in any particular room.
This is the moment I am concerned about. Not the adjustment of form, which is reasonable and necessary. The erosion of content, which is neither.
The practice is simple: before adjusting for any audience, write for yourself. What do I actually think about this, in my own words, before the editing begins? The version that has not been adjusted for any room is the voice worth protecting.
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