[366] Trying Too Hard

If there was a symbol for irony, I'd probably get it tattooed. (I googled it, there is...)

I'm lucky to have a personality and thought pattern that is bred from trying. Because not only are habits learned, but you can learn from your habits. Writing is a fairly significant pattern I adopted when I realized “sitting and thinking” alone wasn't doing me any good. What's interesting, even when it's in small doses, is the range of responses to it.

It's important, for this blog anyway, to lead with “I first write to help me think.” This means sometimes I say things in ridiculously abstract ways. Sometimes I have some theme on my mind that closely resembles a talk I just had or after I've contemplated some friends' life. It's generally not appropriate to air everyone's dirty laundry or to arrest my focus with arbitrary judgments I may have about the situation at hand. Even and especially if it would “help” me sound clearer.

Understandably, the facebook crowd has had more occasions to hear me write, bitch, explore, and ramble more than most. You already have something of a context for maybe a religion blog or thoughts on how friend groups and dynamics change. I'm not sure what to conceive of the weight that may play into how “understood” any one piece is.

I've lately been posting to reddit as well. Here, you get to be “scrutinized” by every teenager, internet troll, and wise old janitor...if you submitted your post at the right time and don't get down-voted to oblivion immediately. Of the different responses I've gotten, the one that confuses me the most is “you sure seem to use a lot of words to say an awful lot of nothing...what is your point?”

I hesitate to immediately believe I was writing for “no point” if only to qualify what I said above. I also think it fairly impossible to not take even a single sentence and maybe put it in quotes and say something like “what does this mean, or why did you phrase something this way” before you present the idea that I basically had nothing to say. I suppose I'm sensitive to this kind of criticism because it's not really criticism. It's simply how we out of hand throw away what someone else has said.

I choke on irony not only because I say things like “I'm looking for feedback” and get the oddest, dullest, least helpful kind you can imagine. I also say things like “I'm looking for a conversation” and get the oddest, dullest, and least helpful people as the most eager to come to the table. Now, I'd be easily convinced that maybe I just speak in arbitrary and unhelpful ways were in not for, essentially my small facebook friend crowd. Not in how you respond to blogs, because that's not so much people's style, but when we manage that in person digression thing.

The problem is in knowing how to fix some of the problems. I talk context. I can't get the old vibe I had at parties without the kinds of things I could only fit into a house. Also, I need a house. I talk about changing the nature and purpose of conversation. I don't yet have the data to make it look and sound like what I want it to. I understand there's a marketing problem in how I relate my “relative solutions” to things. So I explore how I would potentially talk about those things to the average Joe who literally doesn't give a fuck about me or care to understand where I'm coming from.

It's not always an argument. It's not like writing chapters in a book. And it's definitely not for people who aren't adept at sussing things out or willing to pursue clarification. I understand what I'm asking for and how I've chosen potentially less than wise avenues to get there, but if it weren't for the array of feedback I've gotten over the years, I wouldn't know that there's room to get meaningful reactions and conversations regardless. Or in keeping with another theme, in spite of the ignorant assholes.