What does "contextualize" actually mean?

What a nonsense word. But unfortunately it's being used very often at the moment. The masculine noun context has long since found its way into everyday language. It was already complicated enough. But now this verb - or, to put it in the old-fashioned way, this activity word - is making life difficult because, by definition, it calls for an activity.

Suddenly there is a need or obligation to always interpret a text in context. In other words, looking at information, events or ideas in isolation is no longer enough. No, we have to assess everything in relation to the circumstances in which they occur or to which they refer and the people who convey them. Thank you very much. So the temporal, political, economic, socio-cultural and personal circumstances play an essential role in how we should interpret something. It reads pretty complicated. As if life wasn't already complicated enough, now we have to contextualize everything.

By contextualizing something, we try to understand how it fits into its larger environment and how it is influenced by this environment or exerts influence on it itself. Can we no longer simply take things as they are? Can we no longer simply read and enjoy texts and, in the best case, even understand them? Does everything really have to be contextualized? YES. To use this unspeakable portmanteau word for once.

If you want to take everything into account, you end up with nothing

YES, because otherwise there is a great risk of being misled. If we don't place statements in a larger context, we could be manipulated. Contextualizing helps us to classify something in order to understand it better. For example, it helps if we take into account that not everything we scroll through on social media is true and real. Or if we take into account that the pitch was not lost because of the performance of the many agencies invited, but because the clients already knew who they were going to choose before the presentation, then that doesn't ease the pain, but it contextualizes the disdainful rejection. But if everything is constantly contextualized in meetings with existing clients, if something has to be viewed contextually or if there is even talk of context-sensitive elements, then it all becomes a bit exhausting.

Therefore: NO, because if we are constantly contextualizing, we won't get anywhere. If every idea, every concept, every solution first has to be considered in a larger context, there is a risk that it will be completely talked out of existence and die before it has even grown up. There are always enough ifs and buts around it that can become a game stopper. Instead of constantly contextualizing, perhaps we should reflect a little more. Reflecting refers to the thought process in which we think about our own thoughts, feelings, experiences or actions. That is usually enough. But beware, reflection requires self-awareness and self-criticism. It is about consciously thinking about the past or the present in order to gain insights or develop further. It's hard, but valuable.

Contextualizing, on the other hand, only refers to putting something in its context in order to understand it better. And that then provides this space for excuses for not having to decide something and play it back to the sender.