Post No. 014 : Arthur's Email : 5775.04.12 : Analysis II

Arthur writes:

[Writing] is an act which forces us to take the time to Stop and Listen to ourselves.

And, after all, if we don't take that time to listen to ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to.

There are no shortcuts to writing, only short attention spans.

So, pick up a book and a pen and take the time to start listening to yourself so everyone else you speak to will start listening too.

Something done well can seem easy to do from the perspective a passive observer. Did you ever watch a movie and think, "Oh, I can be an actor. You just have to talk naturally." Or, did you watch someone give a speech, and have the same reaction? But the actor had a script. The speaker had a speech.

A script and a speech don't have to be written out. An improv actor does not have a written script. Someone speaking extemporaneously doesn't have a written speech. But you can be certain that they  work out in advance, on some level, what they are going to say and how they will say it. If we see a table, we don't think it happened by itself. Someone had a plan, and built that table. If we watch someone perform in a movie or someone give a speech, we can infer there was a plan. The plan may have been detailed step-by-step, or it it may have been like a flowchart, with many nodes branching off. But there was a plan.

Conversely, where there's no plan, there's a rambling man.

Now here's the key point. People tend to ignore other people who ramble. I think this is the point Arthur is making.

Someone who speaks without any thought to what they are trying to say does not have a plan. Obviously, then, they do not compare what they are saying to a plan. As Arthur puts it, the person is not listening to himself.

To be sure, the rambling man's speech conforms to something. That something is whatever he happens to be feeling at that moment. This has been termed "phatic" communications. Phatic speech may express something. like an emotion. Phatic speech may provide an indication of what the person has been doing lately, or planning to do. Phatic speech can be a dumping out of what is in the forefront of a person's mind. But often the phatic speaker is almost unaware of the presence of the person they are addressing. Just as the phatic speaker does not care to speak according to a plan, he doesn't care to conform his speech to what the listener is interested in hearing.

Journaling can be a counterweight to rambling. That is the subject of the next post.