Submerged in a sea of sound I sit here writing to you. The royal you. Just back from a gathering of people who have completed the Arete course at some point in the past several years, so, in essence, a room full of open, intense people. I wasn’t truly in the space for it and yet I wanted to be there.
A very unfortunate pattern for me is to get into large groups of people and become partially paralyzed by this preconceived insecurity of “how” I am supposed to be. Usually it manifests simply by me interacting with people and having absolutely nothing to say, and I am quite used to this phenomenon. What gets me is that I can have perfectly beautiful, deep and honest conversations with most of these same people in smaller group settings or in one on one conversations. There is something about large gatherings of people that keeps me from being able to really engage. I feel so “shallow” in situations like that (not that I am shallow, it’s just that I feel like my interactions are shallow).
There were so many things left unsaid in retrospect, but I literally ‘freeze-up’ in the sense that I just really can’t think of anything to say other than pretty uninterested thoughts.
It baffles me. I wonder if it’s just simply over-stimulation.
On another note, I’m really feeling good about who I am in school. I feel liked and respected by my classmates. I feel like a leader in some ways and a follower in others. I feel like I have something to say in class and no hesitation in saying it. I have taken a personal stand to support each and everyone one of the students in my program and that just feels like such a wonderful gift for me – to set aside notions of competition for the higher purpose of creating a group who is going out into the world to create positive organizational change – and to do so, we need to support one another. This is so contrary to all the previous years of my school experience and looking back at who I was 10 years ago in school really allows me to see how much I’ve changed since then. I’m so much more confident and un-shy. I still see myself as a shy person, but I recognize that that is not people’s experience of me.
(For a long time I was a “hunt and peck” typer and I just now noticed that I am not looking at the keyboard anymore when I type. I wasn’t really terribly slow before, probably faster than I am typing right now, but I didn’t notice when I had to stop looking at the keys to type. I set the intention of learning to type better without looking, but didn’t realize I had gotten there. Of course, now that I am thinking about it, I am typing like shit!)
Anyway, regardless of my state of mind for some of the evening, I actually feel pretty positive about some of my time with friends and course mates. Jill and Kendra and I spent a moment together talking about living together and when I thought about that on the way home, I got tremendously excited. So excited, I must have learned to type without knowing about it!! That household is going to kick so much serious ass I can’t even take it!
Well, it's late and I'm tired. I'm not even going to edit this for content and grammar ... so there! I'm just going to hop in bed and drift off to ssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...........
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3 comments:
i'd suggest vodka to take care of all social interaction problems. works for me.
honestly, though, i have just the same sort of problems. for awhile, though, a fun ameliorative was to TRY to be shallow. to literally make the best attempt i possibly could to be the most shallow conversationalist around. it was, at least to me, funny, and it lifted all sorts of YOU MUST BE SMART YOU MUST BE SMART AND DEEP NOW! issues off my back.
lately, though, in meeting all kinds of people here in NY, i've been feeling like that again. but i just try to keep this in mind: with people who are good conversationalists, i am a good conversationalist. and with people who genuinely interest me, i am a good covnersationalist. it takes two to tango.
in any event, if you end up living with kendra and jill be sure to take lost of pictures of them when they're having pillow fights and braiding each other's hair.
zay
i'd suggest vodka to take care of all social interaction problems. works for me.
honestly, though, i have just the same sort of problems. for awhile, though, a fun ameliorative was to TRY to be shallow. to literally make the best attempt i possibly could to be the most shallow conversationalist around. it was, at least to me, funny, and it lifted all sorts of YOU MUST BE SMART YOU MUST BE SMART AND DEEP NOW! issues off my back.
lately, though, in meeting all kinds of people here in NY, i've been feeling like that again. but i just try to keep this in mind: with people who are good conversationalists, i am a good conversationalist. and with people who genuinely interest me, i am a good covnersationalist. it takes two to tango.
in any event, if you end up living with kendra and jill be sure to take lost of pictures of them when they're having pillow fights and braiding each other's hair.
zay
Oh, don't you worry zay ... i will take plenty of pictures of the pillow fights and the 'painting their nails in their underwear'.
You will find them online for $19.95/month. How else did you think we were going to pay for the rent and the hottub?
- jason
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