I've talked to many of my colleagues about my frustration that I am unable to explain my work to non-experts. The universal response I got is that no one can.

I wish it were true that everything can be boiled down to a simple explanation but for my line of research this simple doesn't seem to be true. It's the one thing I really dislike about it.

Sure, I could throw around some words related to my work. I study how Cohen's method of forcing can be inverted in fine structural models of large cardinals beyond a strong limit of Woodin cardinals.

Does that help? Of course it doesn't. But explaining 'Cohen's method of forcing' alone would take at least a few months. Then we'd have to talk about 'large cardinals' (say for a week), then about 'fine structural models' (say a year). If you knew all that, explaining my work to you would be rather easy. It would take an hour or so outlining the main ideas.