oops - in which I don't say what I mean
The dangers of brevity. Specifically the dangers of trying to compress a lot of thoughts that in your mind are closely associated into a short sentence and then not reading it back critically.
A couple of days ago I wrote:
To which someone replied:
Now I was sure in my own mind that I'd written about 'obligations to family'. This is a different thing. It's still not very clear what I meant by it but it's closer to my originanl intention. I'm not sure why I wrote instead of 'Family committments to people you barely know'.
The reason why 'obligations to family' is still unclear is that I don't specify what obligations I'm talking about. It's also unclear that these obligations can be felt towards friends and acquaintances too.
What I actually had in mind was the obligation to act a certain way and to be a certain person around people you have very little contact with. With family where they have seen you grow up and have known you very well at some stages of your life but now see you much less frequently it is especially noticeable.
I have written about this before. About the experience of talking to someone and being acutely aware that there is a ghost of the person they expect you to be standing between the two of you. That no matter how much you attempt to demonstrate that you are a different person they intransigently treat you like the projection of your previous self.
This obscurity is entirely my fault. What I wrote not only obscured what I meant to say but made it impossible to deduce. Even what I thought I wrote had insufficient clues.
The rest of the paragraph, 'Weekend reminds me why I moved to the city. What I dislike about the countryside. Insular communities' stands as written.
For the rest of the comment, in the past other people have observed that I seem rootless. Some of this was consciously distancing myself from everything I grew up with and used to provide security and sense of self. This was necessary to become who I am. The paradox is that we remain the same to ourselves and are often only aware of change through the reactions of others.
It is easy to discount family. You will often have little in common with some of them. This is not to say that they are bad or that you want nothing to do with them. Just that the friends you choose are in a different and in many ways more intimate relationship to you.
And of course obligations can be boring but boredom wasn't really my point as I hope I've made a little clearer.
A couple of days ago I wrote:
Weekend reminds me why I moved to the city. What I dislike about the countryside. Insular communities. Family committments to people you barely know.
To which someone replied:
If those people were not there... you would feel isolated and without a sense of roots.
It's easier to discount them when you have them. You'd miss them and yes, even the obligations.
Those obligations are abundance in boring and sometimes granny smelling disguise.
Now I was sure in my own mind that I'd written about 'obligations to family'. This is a different thing. It's still not very clear what I meant by it but it's closer to my originanl intention. I'm not sure why I wrote instead of 'Family committments to people you barely know'.
The reason why 'obligations to family' is still unclear is that I don't specify what obligations I'm talking about. It's also unclear that these obligations can be felt towards friends and acquaintances too.
What I actually had in mind was the obligation to act a certain way and to be a certain person around people you have very little contact with. With family where they have seen you grow up and have known you very well at some stages of your life but now see you much less frequently it is especially noticeable.
I have written about this before. About the experience of talking to someone and being acutely aware that there is a ghost of the person they expect you to be standing between the two of you. That no matter how much you attempt to demonstrate that you are a different person they intransigently treat you like the projection of your previous self.
This obscurity is entirely my fault. What I wrote not only obscured what I meant to say but made it impossible to deduce. Even what I thought I wrote had insufficient clues.
The rest of the paragraph, 'Weekend reminds me why I moved to the city. What I dislike about the countryside. Insular communities' stands as written.
For the rest of the comment, in the past other people have observed that I seem rootless. Some of this was consciously distancing myself from everything I grew up with and used to provide security and sense of self. This was necessary to become who I am. The paradox is that we remain the same to ourselves and are often only aware of change through the reactions of others.
It is easy to discount family. You will often have little in common with some of them. This is not to say that they are bad or that you want nothing to do with them. Just that the friends you choose are in a different and in many ways more intimate relationship to you.
And of course obligations can be boring but boredom wasn't really my point as I hope I've made a little clearer.
Comments
I have a collaborative blog - http://DysfunctionalBeginnings.com/. About growing up, beginnings in general, told in a variety of formats (literary, nonfiction, fiction, poetry, new media). Let me know what you think :)
Would love if you'd contribute! let me know..