1st post.... don't get too used to it!
Due to pressure in the severest degree :ahem: Erika :ahem: I am considering the possibility of keeping a blog.Although, I much rather spend my time having actual conversations with my friends, I really enjoy reading about the ideas that they are wrestling with in their blogs as well. I feel that, in some situations, blogs can enable people to express themselves more completely. By being in a written form, raw thoughts can be actualized without the fear of time constraint that plagues many face-to-face conversations. Also, blogging and online conversation can be an outlet for those among us who don't always feel comfortable expressing their thoughts in a group. In the past, I was always trying so hard to keep up with the ever-changing conversation topic nor I'm so engrossed in a story that by the time I'm asked a question, I can't even speak.
What do you think about this? :pause: I don't know what I think about this, or that for that matter... wait let me have a moment of silence to process my thought... oh wait, topic change... dang, I missed it again... In the flurry of the moment, the swirling, capricious changes of the conversation and speakers leave me reduced to a stoic statue hidden in the back of the crowd. I stare on with intent eyes and listening ears, but the pressure of so many unknown rebuttals to my non-existent interjection chokes out my brainwaves and I short-circuit even before I utter a word.
I don't know if it springs from fear or laziness... unless I am defending something I really believe in or I know I will get a favorable reaction, I don't feel comfortable or compelled to expressing myself fully in large groups of people. One of the reasons I think I struggle with talking to a lot of people is that I often think and talk in short-hand (so to speak) where you have to already know what I'm talking about to get the meaning. I see the idea as a zoomed-in picture - the end is the subject and there are details surrounding the subject, but they are generally an afterthought. It's difficult to be patient enough to fill in all the details to make it a coherent, chronological story and by the time I add all the important stuff, I feel like I've already lost my audience.
In order to change this pattern of behavior, I've been trying to figure out what is the root of this problem... lo and behold! It's been there all along... I was thinking to much. By the time somebody was talking to me about a particular subject, I had already thought out all the angles of what they were saying and guessing how they would respond even before I spoke... vas es das? I figure now that people often don't think too much about how their words will be recieved until maybe a second before they speak... possibly even a couple seconds after they speak or, in some cases, not at all. The cure to my malady - so simple, yet so nerveracking - is aptly quoted by Bobby McFerrin: "be happy, don't worry"
~New thought~
Why do we worry so much? Why do we wrap ourselves in blankets of discontent to shield us from the burning brightness of life. It's as if our eyes would burn for seeing the true beauty in life, for allowing our hearts to be ever softened by the tender strength of love, for straining to hear the resounding thunder of freedom bursting forth from every corner of creation. Why so afraid you little pile of water and dust? Why look up at the grandeur of God with glassy, widened eyes and a soft whimper? Take off your veil of false traquillity - abandon your virtues of passivity, apathy, and fear! Take up your sword, breathe strength deep into your lungs, rise up again once more!
Oh courage, oh strength, oh God! Gird up my quaking frame! Heal my body! Make me whole! Praise be to the one who bears the weight of the whole world. In Him alone my strength stands, He is my everything - I can no longer be satisfied apart from him. Without Him I am a cold, dark stone...
I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can't be a light unless I turn my face to you~ Sara Groves
posted by Sasha @ 5:03 PM
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