Expressive On The Inside

I was hard at work and trying to ignore the chaos surrounding me, but at some point my mind registered that someone had been speaking to me moments earlier. One of the project managers was looking at me, I sensed. And then, a few moments after I registered it, my brain somehow replayed his comment, something that needed acknowledging. I turned to him and said: "I was nodding, but only in my head."

Minutes or hours passed. Then the director was sitting next to me and telling others a story that, again, I was trying to ignore. Once more, however, I inadvertently picked up the gist of it. Something about an employee being let go, and how he -- the expressive person that he is -- immediately did a jig. Then, after admitting it was an inappropriate time to do a jig, he said he should probably strive to be more like Zeri and that he should express his thoughts on the inside.

I think I turned to him and smiled, but I can't be sure. In reality, my mouth may or may not have moved.

 

On The Birthing Of Words

Not many weeks ago, I told a colleague that I'd prefer him to use my full and correct name, and -- in case he couldn't handle that -- I offered up a couple of acceptable nicknames. I don't always respond to the name he had been calling me by, I told him.

Now, whenever we meet, he struggles to call me by anything else but his original name for me. After convening today's meeting, I mentioned this to another coworker.

"He has trouble calling me by my real name," I said.

"Yeah," my coworker said, "but he corrects himself half the time."

"True," I said, "but I wonder why he struggles. I think it's because he's a talker."

"Yep, he's a talker," my coworker said. "He's not like us. His words are more quick to come out."

It's not a bad trait to have, being a talker, but it's not one I readily understand. I can't imagine having difficulty with someone's name. While my colleague struggles to stop words from coming out, I struggle to make words come out at all. I deliberate on nearly everything I say. I tend to mean what I say, and I usually chew on things before they come out. Whereas he seems to have thoughts speed from their conception to his mouth, mine take long and winding detours before they're birthed.

But sometimes I wish I could be more free with my words. Or, at the least, I wish my thoughts could be more speedy.

 

On The Torture Known As Interviewing

Earlier this year, my day-to-day existence underwent a bit of a shake up when my employer for nearly sixteen years decided to close their Seattle office. What had been a fairly stable livelihood for me suddenly went up in the air.

After enjoying a short respite from the rat race, the search for new employment began. It was not the fun kind of search, unlike a treasure hunt in every way; in fact, it wasn't something I would wish on my worst enemy.

For my profession, the interview process involves three parts; in general: 1) the first part was a call with the company recruiter, a short evaluation of my aspirations and general fit; 2) the second part was a technical phone screen lasting about an hour and typically involving some coding exercises on a shared screen; 3) the last and worst part was the in-person interview, which would last anywhere between four and six hours, and it involved lots of white-boarding, code exercises, and discussions to evaluate my emotional intelligence.

Multiply this excruciating process by however many interviews I had, and you can imagine what kind of state I was in. I was exhausted. I'm not one you would ever expect to be able to talk for five hours straight.

In hindsight, some of it was amusing. For instance, before each interview my various recruiters -- without fail -- would advise me to "be outgoing" and to "act like a team player". I did almost laugh the first time I heard that. I would have directed them to this blog, but I knew they were only trying to be helpful.

All I can say is that I'm glad my search is over. It's a huge relief not to have to be so damned extroverted. Hopefully the new job sticks for a while. I don't look forward to going through that again.

It's definitely time to start working for myself.

 

Moving Apart

Call got a plate of food and went off by himself to eat. It was something he had always done -- moved apart, so he could be alone and think things out a little. In the old days, when he first developed the habit, the men had not understood. Occasionally one would follow him, wanting to chat. But they soon learned better -- nothing made Call sink deeper into silence than for someone to come around and start yapping when he wanted to be by himself.

Virtually all his life he had been in the position of leading groups of men, yet the truth was he had never liked groups. Men he admired for their abilities in action almost always brought themselves down in his estimation if he had to sit around and listen to them talk -- or watch them drink or play cards or run off after women. Listening to men talk usually made him feel more alone than if he were a mile away by himself under a tree. He had never really been able to take part in the talk. The endless talk of cards and women made him feel more set apart -- and even a little vain. If that was the best they could think of, then they were lucky they had him to lead them. It seemed immodest, but it was a thought that often came to him.

And the more he stayed apart, the more his presence made the men nervous.

Excerpt from Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry

 

Bursting Inside

Rarely am I as boisterous as those around me. I decline to take front stage unless there's a need for it. For a long time I worried that my lack of boisterousness was interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm, or -- worse -- as a lack of conviction, as if I couldn't truly mean it without saying it loudly. But I am enthusiastic... in my own quiet way. When I'm bursting with joy, a warmth fills my chest, my face radiates, I tense up with excited energy, and I'm often paralyzed by the enormity of my feelings. It doesn't need to burst from my mouth in order for it to erupt from within me. I don't need to voice it in order to be certain that it's there.

I realize, of course, that there's something to be said about expressing myself to others, that it's a good thing. It doesn't need to be boisterous, though: it just needs to be true.

 

Ingoing: Redux

Within the pages of a book I recently read, being used in complete sentences, I was excited to find a term that I imagined I had coined: ingoing. Damn. I knew I should have registered a trademark for the word. I could at least be receiving royalties for its usage.

Regardless, I'm glad to see the term taking root.

The passage, without further ado:

---

"I have nothing at all against George."

"But?"

"But?"

"But there's a 'but' coming here, isn't there? It feels like there's a 'but' coming," mumbles Elsa.

Dad sighs.

"...But I suppose George and I are quite different in terms of our... personalities, perhaps. He's very..."

"Fun?"

Dad looks stressed again.

"I was going to say he seems very outgoing."

"And you're very... in-going?"

Dad fingers the steering wheel nervously.

"Why can't it be your mother's fault? Perhaps we don't visit you at Christmas because Mum doesn't like Lisette."

"Is that it?"

Dad looks uncomfortable. He's a rubbish liar. "No. Everyone likes Lisette, I'm well aware of it." He says it as people do when considering an extremely irritating character trait in the person they live with.

Elsa looks at him for a long time before she asks:

"Is that why Lisette loves you? Because you are very in-going?"

Dad smiles.

"I don't know why she loves me, if I'm to be quite honest."

"Do you love her?"

"Incredibly," he says, without any hesitation.

But then he immediately looks quite hesitant again.

"Are you going to ask why Mom and I stopped loving each other?"

"I was going to ask why you started."

"Was our marriage so terrible, in your view?"

Elsa shrugs, "I mean, you're very different, that's all. She doesn't like Apple, that sort of thing. And you kind of don't like Star Wars."

Excerpt from My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman

 

On Being Puzzling

"Most people spend little time inside their heads. They don't understand how you live. They're like medieval peasants looking in puzzlement at the troubadour."

Excerpt from Accelerando
by Charles Stross

 

Unconnected

My father recently replied to an email I'd written weeks before; as to the late reply, he said that he was confused about the issue of "family connectedness" I'd mentioned. He didn't explain his confusion, but I suspect that he wonders whether I've inherited from him a tendency to be less connected.

This is a subject I've pondered in various ways throughout the years. A movie I watched a few months ago caused me to revisit the subject in a new light. The movie, "Giant Mechanical Man", depicts a culture in which people, in general, are difficult to connect with. Everyone wears earbuds; they listen to material on electronic gadgets rather than to anyone else, and no one is available for others.

What I realized while watching is: that's me. I listen to audiobooks every day. I walk to work with earbuds nestled in, and I regularly go out to restaurants while listening to stories, too. I even listen to stories while grocery shopping, and while I'm out running. I'm not doing it to avoid others, yet I wonder whether it's a habit that aids in my tendency to be less connected. Technology is the new evil because it separates us; on the other hand, it's nothing new that being separate is "worrisome."

Maybe I should make myself available to friends and family more often than I do, but I don't think I have a responsibility to make myself available to the entire world. If someone wants to talk with me, I'm not going to avoid them. I welcome it. I'm not trying to ignore people, nor am I callous. While I'm not motivated to create or maintain as many as others might like, I do desire meaningful connections. I may want fewer, but the deeper they are the better.

In a way, I find that it helps that I listen to stories. It helps me to understand myself and the world. It gives me a way to connect with others -- with something that I care about: good stories. And what's the point in sharing stuff unless I care about it?

What's the point in being connected unless I mean it?

 

Very Ingoing

They described themselves as outgoing, a term he heard frequently. "Very outgoing," some said, perhaps to distinguish themselves from the rest. He figured there was something appealing to it. Was it a more prized quality? A more desirable one?

He wanted to introduce himself as ingoing, instead, and he wondered how it would play out. He'd say it proudly. They'd think he was joking, but he wouldn't participate in the laughter. He'd smile and wait for them to understand that he meant it.

Would they think less of him afterwards? Would they pity him? Or would his confession be as celebrated as any other?

No matter the answer to his questions, he knew that he -- for one -- would cherish knowing that there were others like him, that there were ingoers and outgoers and everything in between.

There are prized ways of being, he mused, that we never hear about.