I've been thinking about it lately (and thinking is a good thing for the elderly) and I've decided that I am definitely not a garrulous person. In a social setting, I'm not very good company because I rarely get into the conversations, and when I do, people usually look askance at me, and then go on with whatever and whomever they were talking to...and about. Personally, I prefer listening to talking. I'm a very good listener, but a lousy talker...and probably one of the reasons I always found it difficult to make a friend. I much prefer to write, and writing is a solitary act. No friend can do it for you. I actually like being alone. To work in silence and with all one's heart, that is the writer's lot; he is the only artist who must be solitary, and yet needs the widest outlook on the world. At times, while I was writing my "Memoirs", Rho came marching in and started talking to me while I was "en medias res"--in the middle of things. Once, she spoke to me at the very moment I was about to write the great American sentence; a sentence so beautiful and full of passion and wisdom that the literary world would cheer, and the Nobel Prize people would have something to think about. When she left, I completely lost the thought and the chance for fame.
While most writers do their work in privacy, they nevertheless must move in the world, physically and mentally, reading the classics and their peers, accumulating experiences and insights, formulating a philosophy of life and death. They--at least the great ones--must articulate the universal truths of the heart. But even geniuses need social intercourse to fertilize their minds and connect with their audience. That is why God invented Starbucks, sidewalk cafes, saloons, faculty lounges, and early bird dinners. The danger of sociability, though, is that it can become an escape from that scary time when it will be just you and your writing instrument. So, whenever I find myself in a social milieu, I prefer to listen to other people, and when I speak it is usually to ask a question.
I therefore believe that my joy of performing on the stage where the words belong to someone else is an escape from my reticence to join a conversation. And my success as a teacher is another . So, if I don't speak to you, it's not because I don't like you. I'm just not a social animal; if I lived in the 15th Century, I would probably be a monk or a hermit.
2 comments:
I believe that your self-analysis of your interaction in a group greatly differs from the impression some others have of you. Speaking for myself (although quite a few others have agreed with me when the topic has arisen), I feel that rather than listening carefully and silently to the conversation around you, you generally "take over" the discussion, and often move it to focus on your own experience -- you thus become the center of attention. Perhaps this only happens when you are around family or close friends. I don't say this as a criticism in any way, just an observation that differs from your own observation. That said, I do agree that you are not garrulous at all.
I haven't seen or spoken with you in person for almost 50 years. If that doesn't qualify me as an expect I can't imagine what would. Expressing one's innermost feelings is just that. That is how you feel and what others perceive is another issue entirely. The sensitivity to one's own vulnerability and risk of being ignored or rendered insignificant is monsterous. I know, I walk around with it every day. And if I ever told that to my family, friends or students they would laugh. But I think I understand and a blog, if nothing else, is free expression of how one feels and that's the way Doc feels.
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