word vomit
word vomit. enter at your own risk
I've been reading so much about personality types, and one of the most true things about mine that I read was: they tend to vomit words. That they're huge writers and they communicate better in
writing and writing gives them time to think, and IT'S SO TRUE. I always think that I HAVE to be a writer, because writing is so natural. The words can pour out endlessly and it makes me happy and if I actually go back and try, I can make them make sense too. Soooo many journals and blog entries and endless letters and pages and pages and pages of thinking...
And where does it get me?
I've always loved books that sort of talk about life in a thoughtful way. Like A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle (who I named my daughter after). Or many others I have on my shelf. But as a twenty-something looking for a career (18 years ago now), it wasn't really something I could reasonably aspire to doing. I didn't have the knowledge or the life experience or the... Well, talent, I would say. I'm a fraud, of course. Just a person with a penchant for word vomit.
But I love thinking about things and pondering endlessly and ruminating until the end of time. There has to be some use for that?
What's the point of a life when you have these intense things you do, that could maybe be useful, and you don't use them?
So I used to think: fiction. Maybe you start with fiction.
But of course that's got problems: who am I to think I am any good at fiction? By the very act of writing words of fiction down on the paper, am I not declaring that I think they're good enough for someone to read? and how pompous is that? So very!
It seemed like a step though. I do love reading and I love stories with certain elements and it would be so lovely to write fairy tales. I saw that Shannon Hale had some new books being advertised on Amazon when I went looking for Christmas presents for the nieces and nephews (Yes, I'm the boring aunt that buys them books every year. Did you know that kids' reading ability is directly proportional to the number of books in the house? Even if they don't read them? I know, I know, it's probably lots of other factors that affect it. But I don't care. Any excuse to hand out copies of my favorite books.)
Shannon Hale writes delightful fairy tale stories, and I think: I want to do that too.
So I start, and then eventually run into the wall of: this sucks, who do I think I am for trying, what's the point, no one will read it, even if someone did read it, what does it matter? it's not like it would change the world or anything.
And somewhere in there I go round and round in circles. I need to do something with my life. But no, no those are all silly ideas. What's the point of writing? I just want to word vomit but not harness the ability for anything else....
I'm trying to get back into writing this week, and it's painfully hard. I remember that sometimes I get lost in words and ideas, planning stories and delighting in the word structure and ideas and.... But right now my brain is stuck on figuring out the patterns of people, of wanting to understand all the different kinds of personalities and make predictions and understand the functions and plan a course for my life, because I think: I'm wasting time. I'm going to die. I might die at any moment. And I'll have done nothing, nothing, nothing at all........ Which is not true at all. But when you have little kids it sure can feel like you're doing a whole lot of NOTHING. I know Madeleine L'Engle said for about ten years while she had little kids, all the writing was pretty much not good. Perhaps if I had more quiet and dedication it would help. But I can see that I'll go back to teaching and do it and it will be exhausting and i'll always be regretful that I didn't do something else but it'll be a known quantity.
Does everyone think about death and life purpose so much? It was maybe easier when I had more of a faith in God. Agnosticism is rather painful. What comes after you die? Nothing? I keep checking that there is still something around me, I'm still here, it's okay. Religion is a great story for helping to overcome the incredible angst of the nothingness of the void.
One of the qualities of my type is that I can see all sides to pretty much everything. I can understand where everyone is coming from, even if they're at completely polar opposities on an issue. It makes it easy to nod and smile and listen to whoever is talking about whatever. It might make it harder to know what I myself actually think. I don't even really want to pin myself down, because then someone will be unhappy that I don't agree with their opinion, and that just feels painful. Apparently this a product of two funtions: introverted intuition and extroverted feeling, which are one and two... but the intuition lets you guess about what other people think/feel/want, and the extroverted feeling makes you want to keep everything harmonious, so that no one feels bad. If someone feels bad, I feel bad, and it gets rather icky.
The going camping example was a great one. We went camping. My husband insisted on coming to help out, even though he hates it. And he tried to hide it, but I could tell how miserable he was, and it made me miserable. It was painful. And then I asked to stay another day without him (he'd catch a ride home with my brother), and my mom decided to stay in order to make him happy, but then I worried that she didn't want to be there,. and suddenly my day of freedom was all about making sure that SHE was happy, and I just wanted to be there and relax with my kids and not have to worry about anyone. The kids were happy enough, and it would have been FINE.
The Jung personalty types are actually really dependent on the Functions. I can say I'm Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging. But really it's the functions that describe things more. So my functions are:
Introverted Intuition--primary (the main one)
Extroverted Feeling--auxiliary (the second strongest)
Introverted Thinking--tertiary, and which I think is fairly well developed for me. I grew up focusing on thought over feeling
Extroverted Sensation, the weakness.
and there are sites and books that analyze the functions and how they interact and it's SO FASCINATING. (Did I mention my type is the most interested in types? And analyzing people? and it's SO TRUE.)
And the extroverted feeling, which focuses on harmony and helping other people be happy and helping them to grow... it explains things that aren't explained by the strong introversion tendency. It explains how I teach and how devoted I was to my students and just how much of a caring extrovert I was for them. And it explains some things about chatzy... I am officially burnt out now. Emotionally burnt out, and it's hard to remember that I'm supposed to care how other people are doing. For a year it felt like my purpose in life: be there, listen, help, encourage... and now I imagine people like little claws and tentacles grabbing at me and pulling me down. I've jumped back into the ocean of introverted intuition, and it's hard to want to come out again.
Instead I just get lost in thought, all day, all night, swimming endlessly in ideas and half-formed plans.
I have an online friend who, pretty much every time I talk to her, tells me to take care of myself. I would tell her the drama and the trouble and the pain of trying to keep everyone happy and healthy and all that crap, and she would say: take care of yourself first. You are more important. And it felt kind of great to have someone say that, and also kind of like I was a traitor to my friends, a traitor to my purpose.
(All my friends are online friends. Writing is my element. Real people are scary.)
And now I try to take care of myself, but I think it causes other people unhappiness. There was someone who wanted to talk, but I just couldn't. I would break down and cry and lose it. I had already done that, and part of me said, "no no you have to talk you have to work this out you have to make them feel better" but there was another part that said "no you've already suffered enough over this and you CAN'T do that anymore. your family needs you and they are your priority and even if you won't protect yourself for your own sake, you need to keep it together for them"
So I feel bad that I can't be there for everyone, to listen and help and support. but-- I can't.
And it's sad, because it felt like a good purpose and now I see I'm just human and small and fallible.
ok i must go and take care of the family. because even though it seems like an endless line of diapers and cooking and listening and reading, it is my big purpose right now.
/end word vomit.
I've been reading so much about personality types, and one of the most true things about mine that I read was: they tend to vomit words. That they're huge writers and they communicate better in
writing and writing gives them time to think, and IT'S SO TRUE. I always think that I HAVE to be a writer, because writing is so natural. The words can pour out endlessly and it makes me happy and if I actually go back and try, I can make them make sense too. Soooo many journals and blog entries and endless letters and pages and pages and pages of thinking...
And where does it get me?
I've always loved books that sort of talk about life in a thoughtful way. Like A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle (who I named my daughter after). Or many others I have on my shelf. But as a twenty-something looking for a career (18 years ago now), it wasn't really something I could reasonably aspire to doing. I didn't have the knowledge or the life experience or the... Well, talent, I would say. I'm a fraud, of course. Just a person with a penchant for word vomit.
But I love thinking about things and pondering endlessly and ruminating until the end of time. There has to be some use for that?
What's the point of a life when you have these intense things you do, that could maybe be useful, and you don't use them?
So I used to think: fiction. Maybe you start with fiction.
But of course that's got problems: who am I to think I am any good at fiction? By the very act of writing words of fiction down on the paper, am I not declaring that I think they're good enough for someone to read? and how pompous is that? So very!
It seemed like a step though. I do love reading and I love stories with certain elements and it would be so lovely to write fairy tales. I saw that Shannon Hale had some new books being advertised on Amazon when I went looking for Christmas presents for the nieces and nephews (Yes, I'm the boring aunt that buys them books every year. Did you know that kids' reading ability is directly proportional to the number of books in the house? Even if they don't read them? I know, I know, it's probably lots of other factors that affect it. But I don't care. Any excuse to hand out copies of my favorite books.)
Shannon Hale writes delightful fairy tale stories, and I think: I want to do that too.
So I start, and then eventually run into the wall of: this sucks, who do I think I am for trying, what's the point, no one will read it, even if someone did read it, what does it matter? it's not like it would change the world or anything.
And somewhere in there I go round and round in circles. I need to do something with my life. But no, no those are all silly ideas. What's the point of writing? I just want to word vomit but not harness the ability for anything else....
I'm trying to get back into writing this week, and it's painfully hard. I remember that sometimes I get lost in words and ideas, planning stories and delighting in the word structure and ideas and.... But right now my brain is stuck on figuring out the patterns of people, of wanting to understand all the different kinds of personalities and make predictions and understand the functions and plan a course for my life, because I think: I'm wasting time. I'm going to die. I might die at any moment. And I'll have done nothing, nothing, nothing at all........ Which is not true at all. But when you have little kids it sure can feel like you're doing a whole lot of NOTHING. I know Madeleine L'Engle said for about ten years while she had little kids, all the writing was pretty much not good. Perhaps if I had more quiet and dedication it would help. But I can see that I'll go back to teaching and do it and it will be exhausting and i'll always be regretful that I didn't do something else but it'll be a known quantity.
Does everyone think about death and life purpose so much? It was maybe easier when I had more of a faith in God. Agnosticism is rather painful. What comes after you die? Nothing? I keep checking that there is still something around me, I'm still here, it's okay. Religion is a great story for helping to overcome the incredible angst of the nothingness of the void.
One of the qualities of my type is that I can see all sides to pretty much everything. I can understand where everyone is coming from, even if they're at completely polar opposities on an issue. It makes it easy to nod and smile and listen to whoever is talking about whatever. It might make it harder to know what I myself actually think. I don't even really want to pin myself down, because then someone will be unhappy that I don't agree with their opinion, and that just feels painful. Apparently this a product of two funtions: introverted intuition and extroverted feeling, which are one and two... but the intuition lets you guess about what other people think/feel/want, and the extroverted feeling makes you want to keep everything harmonious, so that no one feels bad. If someone feels bad, I feel bad, and it gets rather icky.
The going camping example was a great one. We went camping. My husband insisted on coming to help out, even though he hates it. And he tried to hide it, but I could tell how miserable he was, and it made me miserable. It was painful. And then I asked to stay another day without him (he'd catch a ride home with my brother), and my mom decided to stay in order to make him happy, but then I worried that she didn't want to be there,. and suddenly my day of freedom was all about making sure that SHE was happy, and I just wanted to be there and relax with my kids and not have to worry about anyone. The kids were happy enough, and it would have been FINE.
The Jung personalty types are actually really dependent on the Functions. I can say I'm Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging. But really it's the functions that describe things more. So my functions are:
Introverted Intuition--primary (the main one)
Extroverted Feeling--auxiliary (the second strongest)
Introverted Thinking--tertiary, and which I think is fairly well developed for me. I grew up focusing on thought over feeling
Extroverted Sensation, the weakness.
and there are sites and books that analyze the functions and how they interact and it's SO FASCINATING. (Did I mention my type is the most interested in types? And analyzing people? and it's SO TRUE.)
And the extroverted feeling, which focuses on harmony and helping other people be happy and helping them to grow... it explains things that aren't explained by the strong introversion tendency. It explains how I teach and how devoted I was to my students and just how much of a caring extrovert I was for them. And it explains some things about chatzy... I am officially burnt out now. Emotionally burnt out, and it's hard to remember that I'm supposed to care how other people are doing. For a year it felt like my purpose in life: be there, listen, help, encourage... and now I imagine people like little claws and tentacles grabbing at me and pulling me down. I've jumped back into the ocean of introverted intuition, and it's hard to want to come out again.
Instead I just get lost in thought, all day, all night, swimming endlessly in ideas and half-formed plans.
I have an online friend who, pretty much every time I talk to her, tells me to take care of myself. I would tell her the drama and the trouble and the pain of trying to keep everyone happy and healthy and all that crap, and she would say: take care of yourself first. You are more important. And it felt kind of great to have someone say that, and also kind of like I was a traitor to my friends, a traitor to my purpose.
(All my friends are online friends. Writing is my element. Real people are scary.)
And now I try to take care of myself, but I think it causes other people unhappiness. There was someone who wanted to talk, but I just couldn't. I would break down and cry and lose it. I had already done that, and part of me said, "no no you have to talk you have to work this out you have to make them feel better" but there was another part that said "no you've already suffered enough over this and you CAN'T do that anymore. your family needs you and they are your priority and even if you won't protect yourself for your own sake, you need to keep it together for them"
So I feel bad that I can't be there for everyone, to listen and help and support. but-- I can't.
And it's sad, because it felt like a good purpose and now I see I'm just human and small and fallible.
ok i must go and take care of the family. because even though it seems like an endless line of diapers and cooking and listening and reading, it is my big purpose right now.
/end word vomit.