a wordy week

Unfortunately, and slightly unpleasantly at times, during my commitment to expand my vocabulary, I found myself rather tongue-tied. This phenomenon is not new to me-when my employer, the mother of the children I look after, used me as an example to her daughters of well spoken english, devoid of the inane use of 'like'-I found myself in a similar position. Simple conversation, requiring little mental energy, suddenly weighed down on me like a burden.

By committing, or being induced to, a conscious awareness of speech, the naturalness and directness by which thoughts become verbalised, is lost. This dissolution of communication as that which relates, insofar as is possible, our mind's processes to others, meant that through trying to express myself more coherently, the flow was lost. Whilst intending to find a more effective way of conveying and realising my thoughts, avoiding the Pinteresque disjunction of much conversation, the outcome was almost the opposite.

I still want to improve my spoken vocabulary and use all the words which have made their way from the pages of books into my head but no further, however I'm not sure telling myself to do so is the way. This week, unintentionally, seemed to necessitate the use of the old proverb to 'Think before you speak'; although perhaps wise, I found it constricting, more fitting to an age in which repressing much of one's thoughts was necessary in much social discourse and exchange. The phrase's origins are French; 'Il faut tourner sa langue sept fois dans sa bouche avant de parler' which translates as 'One must turn the tongue in the mouth seven times before speaking'. The time it takes to follow this practically, which I would estimate at over 30 seconds, renders the original thought most probably changed, diverted, mingled with other thoughts and thus inauthentic as an expression of what was originally meant.

Before I become too tangled in language and the way it works and what it really conveys, I will end. Suffice to say that this week I have stumbled upon a bit of a paradox and I hope to find another way to use more words but not lose the relation between word and thought, that which I was trying to develop in the first place.

Suggestions?

This week I am going to use more words.

(expand my spoken English so that it reaches the broadest, most dormant constituents of my neglected vocabulary)

Phone Freedom?

Perhaps the first thing I ought to do is explain why I thought cutting (some) ties with my phone was something that I must attempt for a week. This notion may have conjured up a misrepresentative image of myself; I do not have a blackberry/iphone constantly stuck to my palm. In fact I own the cheapest Nokia available, whose most exciting function is a speaking clock and a flashlight whose light I am yet to see lighting anything up.

So why did I feel that this small, rather harmless device was to blame for anything undesirable in my life? May need some distancing?
Following a week of less unnecessary, frivolous texting and the diminished importance attributed to having my phone a hand's grab away, I am not entirely sure. The truth is it did not feel all that different.

I guess the idea came from my general aversion to technology-despite the lengthy existence of the mobile telephone, and its appearance as commonplace fairly early on in my life, I can still be heard to bemoan the pre-phone days on occasion. Whilst I accept that for some people being connected all the time is rather more integral, for example to their job than me, I have always felt that the need for constant contact is a BAD THING, failure of modern society. Technology has bred this fear, and removed the need, to ever be alone.

Whilst asking myself what it was I was trying to achieve this week I realised that what I was getting at; the freedom, within a busy, hectic world, to devote myself entirely to what I was doing, without distraction, is less about the phone, but about myself. By placing the blame, through habit, on my innocent phone, I suppose I have displaced the fact that perhaps it is simply my busy mind, for which the phone is simply another outlet. Certainly, technology-less (and especially, rather paradoxically to the moment, computerless) I would have less distractions, however, on the other ideal end, being connected to what's going on here, now, in the moment takes a lot, lot more than a phone..

I have learnt that I do not belong amongst the amish, as has been suggested to me a few times in the past, and would not want to either, which is progress. Aside from this realisation, I don't think this change really changed much. Whilst attempting this meagre task this week I have been reading 'Spiritually Enlightened: The Damnedest Thing'-an explanation of how it feels, what it means and what it is, to exist in a state which massively amplifies the essence of what I thought I was trying to achieve this week. In fact, the author's distance and disassociation from the here and now, and its complete unimportance to him, scares me.. For the moment, for me, attributing less to the little things (for example not informing quite so many people of the often trivial events of my life via text) is enough.

The hair, the hair!

So this week was a resounding success in its affirmation of the idea that one week really is manageable and things can be achieved! Not since the age of 5 when I had the hair of a princess down almost to my toes, or so it seemed at the time, have I worn my curls out and proud for more than a sheepish couple of hours. The return of holiday photographs in which I've let myself go with the relaxed, beach vibes and worn my hair loose always results in renewed vows to keep my hair to itself; tied back, each strand in close proximity to its headmates. Numerous hairdresser trips have resulted in tears; the most memorable requiring no less than three members of the salon team to attend to the brushing of my mop, and this is only in preparation for the haircut itself. Before sounding devastatingly insecure or as though my hair resembles something truly monstrous and unprecedented in the world of bad hair, I will stop. (In fact, neither of these statements really go to the core of the hair issues and I have no desire to delve into what has caused this rather insane state of affairs.)

What really needs to be said at this point, rather than dwelling on the past, is that things have really rather improved. Friends have commented on the new location of my hair rather nervously,fearing a return to the tumult of hair-abuse they are accustomed to, but they need not have feared.

One week, one life-changing experience (as much as hair can be described as this...)

A Bad Blogger catches up.

Update of how no complaints went to come..it's in the writing but not had time to finish it to readable standard.

For the 21st: I am going to wear my hair down every day!

Also-details of how this went to follow (bear in mind it has a highly personal significance considering my complex, irrational relationship with my hair and hairdressers)

For this week-I am going to relinquish my enslavement to my mobile phone-more specifically I will use it when I need to and not otherwise.

(No more B B ing in the future-Woops, I've done it again, more resolutions)

No complaints.

I aptly came across this quote as I struggled not to complain, having, once again, successfully misjudged my computer's reliability and attributed it with the power to read my mind(unless shouting 'fuck' aloud in the library hoping for sympathy counts as a complaint?);

We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.
- Fuller, Thomas

At the week's start I thought that the first thing I'd want/need to do would be to release a stream of uninteresting, probably outdated complaints. In reality, with all due respect Thomas Fuller, the assertion that we live complaining is neither true, nor is it useful. Although momentarily, in a moment of near-slippage away from my resolution, I was encouraged by his certain sense that complaining IS WHAT WE DO, my week has been rather pleasanter for my curbing of complaints.

I don't believe myself to be a moaner, and hopefully others don't see me as perpetually complaining, however I have noticed that complaining really seems to be a default option, the lazy option-giving birth to more talking, and less doing. As the dictionary itself admits, complaining covers a broad range of things; the expression of dissatisfaction, uneasiness, pain, resentment or grief. With so many things to complain about surely it can't be eradicated? Where would all these expressions go? What I realised though, is that what I usually do, in voicing my responses to pain, dissatisfaction etc. stops me from gaining any new perspective, and instead invites/forces people into pitying me or equally unburdening their complaints-luckily for me dissatisfactions of my week involved such annoyances as having an essay to write while a couple of friends were going out. Stopping in my well-worn tracks before complaining about such trivialities was pretty useful; I began to do such things as 'applaud, approve, be content, be happy, commend, praise, recommend, sanction' (antonyms of complaining).

While everybody knows that it's what you do that makes you who you are, above what you say, in fact, I realised, it's also kinda what you say. The more I spouted these optimistic responses to, admittedly, minor annoyances, the more I felt optimistic. Though I couldn't stop the moans going on in my head (I think it would have taken more than a week, possibly a lifetime to reach this enlightened state of disaffectedness from my surroundings)I stopped most of them coming out and in the process realised that things were a lot less bad than I thought.

Week 1!

This week I'm going to stop complaining.

a start

Countless resolves to change my life in one way or another have passed through my lips, flowed from my pen or simply circulated dizzyingly around my mind. New Year's day always seems apt; other people, too, are attempting to do that one thing which will make their life 'better'. Despite buying into this idea every year around, and finding numerous other occasions for making these transformative decisions, somewhere inside I know that everything will not magically be 'better' on the basis of a sentence written down somewhere or a half-formulated resolve which ends up evolving into multiple notions lacking clear definition and evasive realisability.The latter convoluted sentence expresses just how unfeasible and ridiculous my resolutions have become. By extending them beyond themselves, and adding on infinite clauses, I seem to be hoping that 'one' idea holds a magic key, capable of unlocking entire new realms of experience.

Casting aside the image of a fairytale ending that neatly ties together all loose threads, I am going to begin trying to live some of these past manifestos which I have presiovusly, necessarily, abandoned. This time I will simplify my resolutions so that they are coherent and don't require me to transcend human experience or to abandon any semblance of my present life. I feel it's only fair, to myself and to my ideas, to give them all a chance; by making one resolve every week and, ideally, sticking to it, maybe I will find out which were worth making. Which were possible and whether they tell me anything about how I want to live my life. I am often struck, and fascinated, by the infinite ways people live their lives and the attitudes they hold; people who ostensibly live similar existences to me, the more I get to know them, reveal completely different modes of being, ways of thinking and doing. This may be an obvious point, however these constant realisations lead me to wonder about choices I have made; are they really best for me? are they really what I want? or are they simply patterns I've fallen into? Considering this, not all my resolutions will be of the type which promote the flourishing of the soul, also, hopefully, they will satiate some areas of my curiosity as to the different lives available to me, and how decisions on the most basic things can affect daily life. Between material, tangible resolutions and ideas or attitudes, I hope to find out more about what I want from life; what makes things funner, what makes me more productive, and whether the principles that various groups of society hold up as liberating, the answer, the solution to modern life, make my life a little better.

Perhaps I will realise that all the intentions I've listed above aren't really why I'm doing this. Certainly, as I woke up this morning with the thought of my week's resolution in my mind, I felt a sense of lightness and excitement at the idea that this week would have a focus aside from normal daily preoccupations, and perhaps even enlighten me somewhat. So, for fun, for novelty, out of interest, and as an homage to the abandoned resolutions somewhere in the depths of my mind, i will begin. One resolution a week. One weekly analysis of my discoveries, experiences, failures, successes, and the future of my resolution.