“How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” –Thoreau
Thoreau wrote his Walden Pond after spending nearly two years living in relative solitude in a cabin he built on the shores of a pond on Emerson’s property. While Emerson preached, Thoreau practiced. This month, I was given an assignment much like Thoreau’s: to find something I believed in, and live it.
I think that one of the reasons I became so frustrated with my assignment was because it was more about awareness than reform. I chose to record all of my conversations for an entire day, then watch/listen to all of them and see what I could learn. Words and conversations are important to me; their power to inspire and convict and change lives is something I wish I knew how to wield more effectively. I thought that, by forced to view the content of my words from a third-person perspective, I would be able to identify the breakdown in my communicative ability and, as a result, be able to communicate more clearly.
The problems began during first hour—I ran out of memory on my camera. By the end of the day, I had used three cameras, two computers, four memory cards, and a voice recorder. Recording, which I expected to be the easier part of this assignment, proved to be the most challenging.
Even the first run-through of my day, when I sat down and watched all four hours of content for the first time, was not that bad. I was all, “Haha, my friends are funny,” and “I don’t remember saying ‘Cut out the uterus? Is that what he did?” It was like the quote books, but better—so many gems of conversation I would have otherwise missed. I was even impressed with my voice—it sounded much better than I anticipated.
It wasn’t until I sat down to compile short videos of my day that I realized just how miserable this project could be. I tried to make a list of things I had learned from watching the footage, and the best I got was, “Umm. I eat a lot? I talk really fast sometimes? I sound really stupid when I explain stuff, and my comments in class are unnecessary and sound snaggletoothed…”
But I was okay with it—I figured, once I’ve identified the problem, I can fix it, right? So for the next few days, I tried to notice those same things that bothered me in real life. Not helpful. All I ended up doing was judging myself for what I said instead of correcting anything. It got worse, though, because I started to judge other people on what they said and how they acted and it was right about here that I exploded in a cacophony of frustrated emotion (the proper response? Nope).
I ended up discussing it with Kody, who insisted that what I had was just a bad case of Editor’s Eye: over-analyzing everything and insisting that it was all worse than it actually was. Though the term applies to film, it was probably the most profitable thing I learned from this experiment. Why? Because Editor’s Eye is undeniably the biggest reason why I struggle with writing—it’s like that George Washington problem. This project helped me to realize that, although I’ve gotten past refusing to speak unless it was something eloquent and important, I still struggle with writing—in a re-wording of Lamott—“shabby first drafts.” So, as far as writing goes, I’ve recognized a problem, and have come up with an experiment to challenge it—I’ll write ten minutes every day, first thing in the morning. I hate mornings, first off, and furthermore, I can’t really control what I write that early in the day. It’ll be brain-slush, and won’t read any of that until the week is up. Hopefully, I’ll become more comfortable with my initial thoughts, versus sifting through them until I hit on this elusive ‘better.’
But the point of this experiment was my spoken words, and that ought to be the subject of my reform. Before all else, I need to practice speaking. Imaginary conversations are good in their place, but to become a better communicator, I need to seek out opportunities to converse with other people. Once school resumes, I intend to find a new person every day to carry intentional conversations with. Also, to better the way my words sound, I will practice without people as well. I struggle with enunciating my words, and am a notorious mumbler. I also leave out important details when telling stories or presenting ideas, and people get lost easily—at no fault of their own.
As more of a side note, I really do want to learn how to read aloud and present written word in interesting, moving ways—and I think that working on that would help provide a better standard to adhere to when presenting not-rehearsed thoughts as well. Though I was frustrated with my assignment initially, by discussing it in class and with friends (ironic, no? Talking about talking is helpful? What?) has been invaluable in my quest to communicate more clearly. I’m glad I was able to bring attention to the way I talk, in order to be more intentional about bettering it.
