Blurting.
I talk too much in public these days, and it may be getting out of control.
It started when I (audiby) said "Wow, that's a boatload of popcorn" when the guy in front of us at the movies bought, indeed, a boatload of popcorn. This made Eric nervous, although, as I pointed out, calling something a "boatload" is not a value judgement. It's just what everyone else is already thinking.
But there's other things, too. I tend to talk to bad drivers, especially when I'm a pedestrian in an intersection and they are blindly surging forward at me in their Range Rovers, talking on their cell phones. I sincerely doubt they hear me screech "THANKS FOR STOPPING!" It feels empowering anyway, but I suppose it could get me into trouble.
Jessamyn writes about being kind to the poor. How we relate to the less fortunate--to the homeless and the panhandlers and the Streetwise guys--is a problem for any thoughtful person who lives in the city.
This week, a new problem arose. I felt bad when I complimented a Streetwise saleswoman on her jeans. I actually thought they were nice jeans, patchworked together with different colors, and I spontaneously said "Hey, I like your jeans!" She looked a little surprised, then thanked me.
Then I wondered if I had done something inappropriate. It it the mark of a shallow fashion victim to compliment the homeless on their apparel? Would it be more appreciated to say, "Here's all my spare change, and I'm running home to call my congressman and demand more attention to social problems in America?" Am I not taking people's problems seriously enough? I wondered.
On the other hand, what must it be like to be ignored ruthlessly by the same self-absorbed business people day after day? Or to be treated as a symbol, rather than a person ("Hey, because I have given you a dollar, I have Helped the Homeless (TM) today! Excuse me while I go back to insider trading!"). Is it a bad thing to say "Hello, fellow human being. You have nice pants," and mean it?
Dunno. Too late to find out.
Blurting.
I don't think it's a bad thing. Since we've never had to live on the streets, how can we hope to know what it's like and how it would feel? I usually go out of my way to make eye contact and say something - usually, "sorry, I can't today," in response to a request for change. And I worry sometimes that the person is thinking, "why can't you?'' And I feel guilty. But I feel guiltier if I avert my eyes completely and behave as if the person is no more animate than a lamppost or some litter. It's hard to know what to do.
However, I do refrain from commenting on the boatloads of popcorn I see people with at the movies.
Okay, I came to this web site because I came across the word 'blurting' and wondered if it the term my PSych prof. used and suggested I read a scholarly article on. Obviously you need the reference: Because in seminar I spoke up often (and well) but it would be good to look at this aspect of 'speaking out'...lets call it.
Before on that, your city dilema is truly well said to be confroted by every M.class and upward city dweller. And described well in attemps we make and times we focus away on our needs. Remember, as Augustine said, the saint sins seven times a day. one good act of charity outweighs our weakness and gives thanks for our grace and the wheel spins again. What you did was in fact elevate your stranger above yourself and give him a quality and humanity that as your equal you value and acknowledged he posessed which in seeing the good you then saw beauty. Beauty arises from the good and has its seat there and the good is always giving rise to the beautiful and so our never seperate Plotinus says. but to see the Beautiful you must first grow accustom to the light of the good and have strong enough eyes to see it itself then you can see with those eyes beauty . So you gave her the gift of her exalted being strangers approach us with...heads bowed, from a foriegn land.
And when you speak the truth to yourself and others listen you are only obeying the virtue of your insight/truth. If the truth of the serving sizes in American culture is that they are inordinately large for men and women is true and you wanted to remark on that to memorialize the thought then you are a poet not a punk, revealing not denying by staying a quiet crowd member conforming to unthink or timidly hiding in that crowd for fear of social interaction beyond mannerism.
But as for me blurting is talking to much, not listening to the pauses and I wonder does that prevent deeper development and less but better said communication.
so I hit the browser... and see what it pops out.
Posted by: Toby Helm on March 31, 2004 09:08 AM