Time in the world (to talk)

[lettered]

I’m talkative. When I was little, my Dad gave us a word per week in the summer. They ended up each pertaining to qualities about us. My oldest brother got something that meant glum and moody. All my next oldest brother’s were words such as, “erudite”. (My mom begged for a word; he only gave her one: callipygous.) Mine for the summer were these: loquacious, verbose, garrulous, and gesticulate (I talked even when my mouth wasn’t moving).

Whenever I get on AIM, or any chatting device, I end up talking to people I haven’t talked to in years. This is a many splendid thing, except that it takes approximately nine hours, and by the time all the conversation windows get clicked closed, I’m still not done:
1) With the dishes
2) With my writing
3) With my laundry
4) Watching Important Things, such as James Harriot and 80s baseball anime
5) Talking to friends I haven’t talked to in years.

The end result? I do not get on AIM. I do not chat. I do not pass go.

Most things end up being like this with me. The other day at movie night, I had all sorts of thoughts about the movie! But lots of people were talking, and my thoughts were long, and complicated, and very involved, and mostly for the ears of my_daroga and Mr. Daroga. The point is though, I ended up not saying anything, because I knew it would take too long, and that the kind of discussion I wanted would not result from it.

I do this with lj. I have a million things I could post about, but don’t, because it will take too long. I feel like I’m wasting time; I feel in the end I still won’t say what I mean anyway; I feel people won’t read it because it’s too long; I won’t have time for the discussion because it will be too involved, etc etc. It’s part of my weird lj neurosis, which I believe I have discussed elsewhere.

It makes me sad. LJ is particularly cool because I think you can have the involved conversations I want to have on it. The formatting is fine for long discussion, plus the people here are thoughtful, and when they’re not, I don’t have to know that they didn’t listen to me. I don’t have to see blank faces or people trying to politely disengage from the conversation; I just get people not commenting. Which is fine! Furthermore all this gets recorded, both my insanely long thoughts and people’s insanely long thoughts back. It is perfect for me in so many ways!

Anyway, what I’ve decided to do is try to spend 15 minutes a day making a post. I spent 15 minutes on this one, and even though it’s stressing me out to cut it off here, maybe it will inspire me to keep going, and finally get some thoughts out. Some of it is writing, some fanfic, lots of thoughts about writing, and life in general. It may turn out to be fairly boring, but maybe I won’t feel such regret about having this wonderful tool and not using it appropriately.

. . . Watch me only do the 15 minute thing until tomorrow. I guess it’s worth the effort.

Comments

[tkp.livejournal.com]

when i have this impulse, it freaks me out, and i have often made such a post and then deleted it soon after, or worried about it all day.

Oh, I understand this very well. I hardly ever post about my personal life here. I mean, even with this post I made today, I don't plan to post about my personal life, and it has nothing to do with privacy or security or anything, and everything to do with, "does anyone really care?" and "does this really say anything about me?" and "does this help any of the problems I'm having?" (To which, btw, the answer is always no. Some people say talking about problems helps, to which I say absolutely, except you have to talk when you're ready, and for me talking just because someone says I should NEVER makes me feel better.)

For what it's worth, hon, I'm interested in you. I don't believe I have your friended any more, but I still click back on your journal to find out how you are, and I've missed our conversations. And I find your life very interesting, what I've seen of it. And I don't know about others, but when I am interested in someone's fic I also become interested in them, which is one thing I love about fandom on lj. I used to read fic I loved and think, "Who the fuck IS this person? Who are they that they could come up with this? What sort of person can say this/write this way? What else are they into?" So getting both sides of it on lj makes me happy.

I know all that might not necessarily be helpful, as reassurances don't actually help me to say stuff about myself either.

(plus, self-summaries never express any more than a series of facts it seems. like paving stones with nothing between them.)

Cool simile, and again, I know what you mean. I find that talking about fiction expresses more of who I feel I am than talking about, say, my job. One thing I do, either just naturally, or maybe it's developed as a result of my problem with talking about myself--though if so, it developed quite young, because I remember doing this when I was seven: I internalize real life things that happen. I process them by making them abstract, general things, that possibly can apply to other people to, or that may apply to life in general. In the end I talk about *these* things, and they are far more personal for me than talking about you know, what I did today, but it sounds like I'm talking about . . . anyone, or generalities, or society, or something. A little bit? Anyway, I dunno if that is exactly healthy or not, but I guess I'm trying to say, I totally feel you on having difficulty talking about myself sometimes.

Obviously, I have absolutely no trouble saying all this ;o)

Anywho, I'm glad you commented, because this is interesting, and makes me think a lot. I hope you know I welcome your thoughts, your wordiness, and your neuroses. More often than not I'll share a bit of it to some degree!