Hellos to those who write!
Putting things into words is an interesting activity. For those of us practicing zazen, words take up additional weight--like hiking himalayas--we carry fewer and fewer of them with us.
Well, that's not quite true, but I'm sticking with this metaphor for the moment. Metaphors ultimately fail if pushed past the brief point of their usefulness, but during that brief juncture, they can be very helpful.
The fact is, the way I write is the way I write and someone experiencing me in person would have to calibrate these two (the in person speaking 'me' and the writing 'me.'
Maybe it's a generational thing--I am 58--maybe it's an educational thing--I did a lot of reading when I was young.
I remember the first time ever I blogged (I was immediately pounced on by others--it was as if I was in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit on the rough side of the playground!--
I was told how disingenuous my language was, and who-did-I-think-I-was putting on airs, and that I was a fake, and all. (!!!!)
Perhaps it is more of a pre-computer/pre-texting, pre-blogging thing than anything else (my writing's beginnings pre date these things--I still prefer fountain pens--)
The fact is, I use expletives in my daily language--I love the word fuck (come on, it's just the BEST!--it's a verb, a noun, an adverb--with that fricative and that hard glottal stop it is fun to say and no matter how many times you say it it never gets tiresome)-but what is fun for saying isn't as fun on the ears for hearing and when I'm around a lot of people all liberally using the F-word and its multiple permutations, it gets out and out boring. Sometimes I like taking dusty words off the shelf--for example recently I used the word purchase--I was trying to get a grip on a jar I wanted to open--"here," I said to my friend, "could you give it a try, I can't get a good purchase on it."
He loved it!--this word in this way--But then, he greatly appreciated so many things, little things, things which go unseen, unheard by others...
Many years ago I had a boyfriend who accused me of trying to make his father feel bad. Turned out I was 'just speaking normally' but I was using words not found in his father's vocabulary (and no, nothing as 'fancy' as 'purchase') and that I was trouncing around with my 'college education' all 'in his face.'
I was shocked, as I had no awareness my words were causing consternation (ok, ok, 'making his dad feel bad').
Back to writing: It is one thing to have met someone and have a sense of the flesh and blood 'who' doing the writing and it is something else to only have their written words by which to come to know them.
I know that in sitting with different groups over the years I have experienced some teachers--they open their mouth--they start to speak and my mind says "You jerk, what the fuck are you talking about?!" and I watch my mind say that and I wonder that I have such a response. It has been very helpful to my practice to have such a teacher say the things they have in the way they have JUST so I could encounter this place in my mind! I have never told this particular teacher I thought he was joke and a disservice to practice and he has no right blah blah blah. It is something I have not fully digested yet, I am still in the process of seeing how his words, his manner set something off in me (revulsion!). (my same sweet friend mentioned above who helped me open the jar, respected this same teacher whom I have limited tolerance for--at his (unspoken) insistence, I continued contact, but... chose to limit it. I chose to broaden my contacts with other teachers.
It is a wide world after all.
This personality stuff is...this personality stuff. Other students seem to benefit from the above mentioned teacher. My opinion is after all, only my opinion. It is my job to see the origins of my distaste...and anyone who lets me encounter this in myself helps me do it and I am grateful to them, even if I don't know that yet.
It takes time to come here, and time to read and time to write. I don't have a lot of time, so that mean's coming here somehow is important--because I do it when I do it--with all the other things I could be doing/attending to. It takes time to read, I don't read all of what is happening, don't have the time, I skim over other's styles, recognizing that in person I would be listening to them fully, but here on threads I just skip through and most of the time I have nothing to add, nothing to say, or very very little; precious little.
So this thing about writers and styles and how others' words have impact or don't is something I think is quite important to ponder, consider, and celebrate!