Hey look, an entry that's not a health update!
So the other day I was picking Lance up from work, and this piece about Chinua Achebe's opinion of Heart of Darkness came on NPR.
I was quite disappointed to hear Achebe's continued opinion of HoD, as it is one of my favorite books. (Coincidentally, I had recently started rereading it. A friend was reading it for grad school, and it got me excited. Granted, I got distracted about 2/3 of the way through, and have yet to re-finish it.) I started to tell Lance about my opinions, and as I progressed, I managed to both reinforce and contradict my own arguments. I could see a way for Achebe's viewpoint to be completely valid, while retaining the validity of my own view. I still agreed with myself, but I could see Achebe's point.
The thing about this is that I did all of this by mostly just talking to, not with, Lance. Lance gave me feedback on whether I was making sense or not, but didn't really offer any opinion of his own until I was finished. While I didn't reach a definitive conclusion, I felt wholly satisfied in the process of exploring possible conclusions. This is the way that I process most things. It takes a very long time for me to come to a definite opinion about something, which many people may find surprising, given that I seem to have passionate Opinions about just about everything. However, I'm not actually tied very tightly to many of those opinions. I'll frequently discuss an issue with someone, go think about it for a while, and then need to bring it up again later to either prove or explore my original conclusions.
I think this is why I've always found writing mostly unappealing. Writing seems so permanent, and there is so little that I want to be permanent--able to be stared at and picked apart without defense. Talking lets me feel out a subject, adjusting as needed, while writing assumes that I've committed and won't budge.
I was quite disappointed to hear Achebe's continued opinion of HoD, as it is one of my favorite books. (Coincidentally, I had recently started rereading it. A friend was reading it for grad school, and it got me excited. Granted, I got distracted about 2/3 of the way through, and have yet to re-finish it.) I started to tell Lance about my opinions, and as I progressed, I managed to both reinforce and contradict my own arguments. I could see a way for Achebe's viewpoint to be completely valid, while retaining the validity of my own view. I still agreed with myself, but I could see Achebe's point.
The thing about this is that I did all of this by mostly just talking to, not with, Lance. Lance gave me feedback on whether I was making sense or not, but didn't really offer any opinion of his own until I was finished. While I didn't reach a definitive conclusion, I felt wholly satisfied in the process of exploring possible conclusions. This is the way that I process most things. It takes a very long time for me to come to a definite opinion about something, which many people may find surprising, given that I seem to have passionate Opinions about just about everything. However, I'm not actually tied very tightly to many of those opinions. I'll frequently discuss an issue with someone, go think about it for a while, and then need to bring it up again later to either prove or explore my original conclusions.
I think this is why I've always found writing mostly unappealing. Writing seems so permanent, and there is so little that I want to be permanent--able to be stared at and picked apart without defense. Talking lets me feel out a subject, adjusting as needed, while writing assumes that I've committed and won't budge.