Having Trouble Saying It?

The impulse is pure -
Sometimes our circuits get shorted,
By external interference

Signals get crossed -
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence

Neil Peart*

Ever have trouble getting your point across? I know I do. I can't count the number of frustrating conversations I have had with family members and friends, during which I have tried to communicate something that is utterly and vitally important to me, only to find that interruptions, tempers, moods, and irrelevant tangents prevent me from getting to the real heart of the matter.

Conversations often begin with a pure impulse, that being the desire to share our thoughts with one another. But all too soon the circuits get shorted by the external interferences of the phone ringing, the waitress asking if we want another drink, the television previewing a favorite series, the dog barking, the kids screaming, the blackberry buzzing, the lawnmower running next door.....

While we sometimes cannot help these things, we should probably begin to recognize how they get in the way of real communication. Quiet and solitude, or the quiet, shared company of a few friends, are things that we experience less and less often. In our frantic pace, we forget that conveying a message requires energy and thought, and receiving a message requires concentration and attention. As our "deficit disorders" in these skills become more and more acute, the internal incoherence that arises from these disorders frustrates the sending and receiving of signals even more.

I am posting this blog as a way to communicate ideas about things that are extremely important to me, but that external interferences and internal incoherences prevent me from saying in day to day conversations. The written word has power; it has a way of circumventing the obstacles of speech, because the writer can express complex thoughts and emotions in an atmosphere that is more free (hopefully!) from interruptions, and the reader can be more open to receiving ideas when the burden of defending a particular point of view is lifted by the solitude of reading.

My hopes in sharing my thoughts are that the signals will reach their destination, and that the reader will be inspired, moved, or at least moved to say, "I never thought of it that way before."

Thanks for stopping by, happy reading, and if you find you are having trouble saying it, try writing it out loud.

Sharyn Beach

*Rush. Vital Signs, from the album "Moving Pictures," 1981, Core Music Publishing.