Seasons in Heartbreak in Seasons

One thing that I do not do well, or better to say one thing that I have not tried to cultivate in myself is an ability to communicate. To communicate well.

Such a thing though, once said, immediately conveys another idea, and that is the idea of falsehood.



I'm well spoken and not in the racially patronizing way that some say that others are. I'm fully capable of expressing clear ideas well, of engaging analogies and metaphor to digest complex notions and make them simply comprehended.

I can put words together, typed on a page of the internet and make a point, clear as day and sometimes even be persuasive. Even persuasive. I can bullshit with the best of them, comment sagely and present a viewpoint that is underrepresented with a certain forcefulness that makes it seem much more natural, much more coherent than it even might be.

I can express opinions and formulate new ideas and demonstrate them adequately. I can tell you a thing or two about a thing or two.



Of course the failure, my failure, is not one of ability but interest.

I'm understanding where the interest departs and where it is derived. Now. I'm understanding it right now as I type and think.

Ideas, I get a few, every day, sometimes good ones, and then there is a conversation and the thing is gone, it's given away, something said, something done, there is a conversation and the words are put out. What's left after? Can I write something down? Do I want to write endless series of conversation, of dialogues?

Here is a space in the world for doing what is called Blogging, for writing a thing called a blog that was once called an essay. Do you think that I'd rather tell you something, you - yourself, in relative quiet, something for you to hear and maybe forget or ignore? Or do you think I'd rather ignore you completely and just say what I want to say?

You get no points for knowing the answer. You're the same way. I assume, maybe rightly, probably rightly. Tell me something, if you want to, I listen.

They tell you that, to be good at communicating, you listen. So I do that, and try not to talk. I pay attention and know what you're going to say because you, like everyone, will say a variation on the same things that you've always said. Like I do, like anyone does.

They say I'm bad at communicating, but I know how to talk, talk is cheap after all. What's communicated through actions? Isn't that what you want to demonstrate? I ignore phonecalls and don't return messages. I am told I am bad at communicating, but I will tell you, that I have communicated something true and profound. Actions not words.

Words are few, there's not enough and in your life you won't type enough of them, all the words you have to type - that you should put down and make manifest. So do you waste these moments without deliberation on the sudden, insistent conversations that erupt from the ether? Or do you maintain a silence and save your words for your bigger or best purpose.

Words and attention - they're the Location, Location, Location of the mind's real-estate. Who's got any of these to spare? Who's got so many of these that they just cast them about without a thought?



Here:

We speak, you and I. Do we share? It is called sharing, there is a communion to it. There is supposed to be. That is the conversation, the sharing. Sharing is presented, it is said to be admirable. I've seen that and know it to be, it's right to share and have kindness.

But you walk down the street and there's a woman, or a man, and he says or she does that she needs a dollar, or he needs a cigarette, or they need you to listen to their story, they need a bus pass. You listen, but the story is stale from the last block, where you heard it before. You're petitioned, again and again for the same sorts of things. Soon you're out. Soon you are late, you have no money to get anywhere, no way to travel, and nothing to do while you wait. You're a beggar now and hopeful that the next person along will spare you a dollar, or a cigarette or a way home. And you think it's not the same with words and attention. You think you can talk forever and share and share. You demand sharing. Like a beggar. Or you refuse it like an asshole. Share yourself or your cigarettes, and it's foolish. The whole enterprise.

I've come to see, in the end, that there's a limit to me and boundaries inside myself, points beyond which no-one goes without taking something out of me when they go. There you have it though, the dangerous standoff between people - to put your hands on the hearts of each other and then the dare to see who will squeeze or let go first. And then, then, when you've done this a few times, you start to notice or fear that you'll not be able to do it again. Maybe what's left is just scraps or maybe it's defended by some inscrutable autonomic process. But the challenge can no longer be met, the things within you, that you are expected to share, they won't be or can't be.

And so you descend into tired analytics, having nothing of yourself left - like a library where the books have all been stolen.


But then again. It is spring again or at last. There is a balm in the air that rides easy over your face and goes into you with that peculiar vivifying power. The sun is not eager to leave the sky and says purple farewells all through the western sky. The city seems at last an edifice and not a shelter and the things within you, within me seem to bloom again and are perhaps, at last ready to be restored.