talking more and listening less.

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part of my recent spate of internet grouchyness has come - i think - from the fact that while it's fairly obvious there's more going on every minute than EVER BEFORE (TM Some Company, Somewhere, I'm sure) (and i'm not talking about just ILX, obviously) i feel like (internet wise at least) i'm taking in a lot LESS (and taking away a lot less) than a year ago. maybe it's burn out, maybe it's the fact that i can't get a lot of information anywhere else (aside from TV) owing to lack of money, but my head seems to be buzzing with more noize than ever before.

i think the vagaries of internet conversation are taking hold as well. perhaps it's the fact that until a few months ago i hadn't had anyone to have a decent conversation with face to face regularly in about a year, but the rather awkward edfices of internet communication are beginning to wear away. for the first time in that year, i'm taking away more from communicating with Actual Live Humans than their internet personas; meanwhile talking with people via forums, email, and IM have become harder to do without frustration.

perhaps its a function of the medium...but people don't seem to actually listen as well (which is a right odd thing to expect, but i suspect you know what I mean.) blah blah irony/sarcasm, personal voice, inflection doesn't carry on the internet...this we all know. so you end up doing your level best to explain yourself as baldly and explictly as possible, and someone still doesnt understand (or chooses to conveniently ignore, in the worst case scenario) and the next ten communiques are spent resolving a minor issue.

this has been the root of my dissatisfaction with ilm in the last few months, not - as some have voiciferously suggested - the influx of new people (although i do question the assumption that new always = bringing something of value to the table. this of course can be applied to me as well, blah blah) or for that matter the lines of discussion or WHATEVER. i was legitmately fired by a topic last night and things still seemed to end up derailed on a triviality. and i don't think it's just me. a lot of people seem on edge or hostile lately. and i wonder why.

i'd appreciate any advice on how to overcome this - or maybe integrate it into my life in a way which doesn't seem so urgent (which, i shall be honest, ilx doesn't seem as, since the late fall of this year, when i seemed to be in contact with more ilx'ers...although it may owe to merely being exceptionally bored at work) - which doesn't amount to "take a long break" (although, of course, that may be the best possible answer.) i don't continue to visit ilx out of any sort of duty...i do it because i still enjoy and respect and value the range of thorts presented here. (momus' "common people" thread was worth all the shakira threads in the world for the month of april.)

― jess, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

another thing i just realized is that at least part of this feeling stems from an evergreen worry inside of me that i'm not engaging my critical faculties enough to nuture and grow them. unfortunately, i think the internet is proving a poor medium - for me - to do so.

― jess, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

b-but we've been ARCHIVING!!

― mark s, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sigh.

― jess, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sorry jess i was just trying to cheer you up: but burn-out is sorta related to the constant now-now-nowness of everything, isn't it? you don't need to drop back into ilx archives, obv, but stepping off the edgy contemporary full-tilt wagon to regrade yr OWN past takes on things isn't a bad idea now and then (i think by contrast my ilx binge is related to spending ten years writing — but not finishing — a history, and compeltely losing touich with the present)

― mark s, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i knew you were mark, and i appreciate it. i think yr right, on some level; this sounds like such a troll-esque comment, "oh if you had any friends you wouldn't be here," which obviously as i think everyone realizes i don't feel - but i'm actually enjoying my physical life (and by that i don't mean sex) for the first time inna long time, to the point where time spent on ilx/the internet feels a bit like i'm stealing time away from something more "important." whereas from february 2001 to february 2002 i was living a very monastic lifestyle - work then home then sleep then work - where the internet did comprise a large portion of not only my entertainment but my communication. obviously all of one and none of the other, either way, is not the answer. because when it comes right down to it, i'm not doing much in my "real" life either. i havent written anything of conseuqence since december or so. i can't remember the last time i read a book, etc.

― jess, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is it because internet is part of a period in your life that is now closed or want to close? I don't think the problem is the internet itself. Nevermind, ignore what I said. Lack of sleep results in rambling.

― nathalie, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

All I can suggest, as it is, is balance. Though maybe we train ourselves to individual discourses for our web selves and our real selves (perhaps disconcertingly for me, though, those who know me say I often speak like I write and vice versa...).

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I recently spent a week allowing myself NO web browsing that was not directly work-related (because I'm a freelancer I often feel like I'm never entirely off the clock). It did me worlds of good. Taking a little vacation from whatever part of your life is vaguely bugging you is usually good at preventing burnout or helping to assess its conditions.

― Douglas, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Which is to say: not "take a long break" but "take a small and well- defined break, then think about it again."

― Douglas, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess, indulge me for a moment in using my own life as a comparative tool. As someone who, for the ten months or so, has for one reason or another been engaging in a bit too much social interaction, the joys of interweb communication become apparent in what it offers that real life communication doesn't. This is via what we might call the higher consequence- free threshold.

To use this thread as an example: even when saying it nicely, saying "screw you guys, I'm going home" has inevitable consequences in real life, where a) your feelings are inscribed into the way you say things, leading to b) people reacting to the feelings they perceive rather than the ideas presented. Then the point of discussion becomes people's emotive reactions, while the idea gets lost. Transpose your question to any other social forum and I doubt you'd get the calm response you generally get here.

More broadly, what ILX does is offer the freedom to develop your ideas on the run - to talk without so much fear that you haven't listened enough. Yeah, you get smacked down, and want to smack down others yourself, but it's rare that even flame wars can't be patched over in a manner that could never happen in real life if the same words were spoken. Lord knows I've said enough dodgy things in my time that seem to get passed over far too benevolently and forgivingly.

And while I totally get your point that it's always nice when people do listen before they talk, it can become a false aim - when have I listened enough? When are my ideas sufficiently developed? Ultimately, ideas are better developed through * constant* talking; at least, talking when you're challenged to rephrase things, put things another way. It's the very barriers of communication within something like ILX (along with the slowly dawning realisation of just how many truly smart cookies there are) that makes it a helpful tool for improving the way you think. And while I sometimes wonder if the only skill I'm nurturing is that of bullshitting, it's served me well enough in "real life" that I'm not about to disparage its worth.

― Tim, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wh-- huh? Uh? Oh, sorry, I was miles away.

― Momus, Sunday, 21 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ILx= University Of Bullshitting. Just overtaken Oxbridge and the Ivy League as number one University in the world.

― Pete, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

heh. they should make "Ivy League" collegiate sweatshirts, like those ones that say "College".

so you end up doing your level best to explain yourself as baldly and explictly as possible, and someone still doesnt understand (or chooses to conveniently ignore, in the worst case scenario) and the next ten communiques are spent resolving a minor issue.

this is the main thing me and Emma B deal with - she's French and it's very easy for us to misunderstand each other, over a totally inconsequential word or phrase. but it's complex - as tempting as it is to dismiss the misunderstanding once its trivial genesis has been discovered, the fact that somebody's so... RARING to misunderstand is evidence of something in and of itself, and the circumstances around the mishearing or willful misunderstanding are a clue about this.... andyway i think tim's OTM that it's thru NOT talking that these misunderstandings become monsters. jess my semicolon response to your zzzz on the bootleg v. gold teeth thief thread was frustration at myself for coming up with what i thought was a kind of predictable response to the question - your snores were OTM. it was a little irritating, but snoring always is!

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six months pass...

revivify

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh- why?

anyway, I will be taking a somewhat 'forced' ILX break as I'm going to india for a month. I don't feel burnt out from it (though i think i should be). but yes, sometimes i feel i would like to post less and read more of what ppl have to say, in a sort of frank kogan style actually.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 18 November 2002 12:53 (twenty-three years ago)

haha josh are you trying to tell me something?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 18 November 2002 16:47 (twenty-three years ago)

(also: the more things change the more they blah blah blah...)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 18 November 2002 16:47 (twenty-three years ago)

When I started reading Jess's thread question above, I zoned out and started scrolling down. Then I thought, "Oh no! I'm one of them! Talking and not listening!" So I went back and read the whole thread.

I'm only one month old on ILE. I think since I'm so new I'm still just at the stage of being really excited about being able to converse with other people (while at work). Conversation is supposed to be two way, but sometimes I type without 'listening' and sometimes I type and nobody replies to what I say. But I don't always expect people to reply.

As for misunderstandings, I agree that sometimes people approach things WANTING to create some sort of crisis. So they take a one-liner somebody threw out for fun and make it into this big deal. People will be people.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Monday, 18 November 2002 16:59 (twenty-three years ago)

eight years pass...

wow this thread is so old and so earnest! and so opposite of what i thought it would be.
i thought this thread was for people who wanted to talk more and listen less, so that's why i revived it.

― Yasmine Teeth (La Lechera), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 15:16 (fourteen years ago)

Jess, you're so good at being hilarious/ridiculous that I forgot you have a very nice sensibility about other things.

― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 15:24 (fourteen years ago)

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