Blog: What Am I Meant To Say?

I have been known from time to time to talk philosophically. The manner in which I speak & the way that I relay information often dips in & out of analogy & allegory especially where the advice column of my mind is concerned. I’m sure that a lot of people find this annoying, but it is my hope that those I call friend, whom I love, enjoy the manner in which I convey information, particularly when advice is asked or my input is given. For those that do enjoy the machinations of my mind, they often ask me how I go about formulating these imaginings into, hopefully, relatable assertions that leave the other person with a deeper understanding of the point I am trying to make. So I guess here is my answer to that question.

It is first worth noting that I do not view myself as some forward or crazy derivative thinker. There are a multitude of people more readily equipped with IQs that are beyond my deepest fathoming who I think could bury me under a mountain of logic & sheer might of brain if given the chance. I am not a prophet, nor am I a counselor, a teacher, a therapist, or a guru. I am simply a man who has put a lot of effort into educating himself & changing his mind when it so often proves to be wrong. So what is it that I think draws people to pick my brain & solicit my advice?

I am a storyteller. That is, after all, why you’re here no? I use my words both in lyric form & in the form of these assorted blogs to tell stories of my life & flood these virtual pages with the muck that spews from my brain. Commonality is my bread & butter & finding the through-line that many of us posses is an easy task for me. This, no doubt, is also partially to do with my neurodivergent brain which is highly tuned to recognize patterns. We all have this ingrained ability to an extent, but those of us who fall somewhere on the spectrum of neurodiversity often have an easy go at analyzing that data & forming a hypothesis that we either internalize or share with those around us. We as humans are constantly taking in new information, it’s just that some of us are more adept at filtering through it or at keeping multiple plates spinning at the same time.

So how do I know what to say? What is it that helps me convey my point outside of the aforementioned parts of my being? Well, I often tailor my response to the person whom I am speaking to. I know we all do that to a degree, & having written that out on here it just sounds like a “yeah, no duh” bit of advice, but it extends further than that. Remember in the last paragraph when I talked about how neurodivergent people are good at pattern recognition & application? You remember that? Just a few short sentences ago? Well, what if I told you that it goes farther than that. That a lot of times we can actively predict the way a conversation will go simply based on past experience & tend to drive conversations using said knowledge. Not going to lie, it sounds a bit manipulative, but think of it more in line of walking into a really, really nice hotel where they’ve called ahead to ask your preferences on music, temperature, scent, lighting, etc. etc. Truly I’ve never been in a hotel that does that, but I imagine it’s a thing. I tailor the experience to the person to help them see the point I am trying to get across.

The other thing that a lot of people seem to miss in all of this is the point of the interaction being a conversation. What does a conversation require to be more than just a lecture? More than one person speaking AS WELL AS listening to the others involved. You have to listen to what is being said, take in that information, & reconfigure your approach or even entirely reevaluate it. The saying “the customer is always right in matters of taste” applies to these scenarios as well. Just because you feel a certain way doesn’t mean the other person does as well. Each of us has our own lived experiences & our feelings are not invalid simply because they don’t align with someone else’s. You have to be willing to listen, adapt, & offer educated & thoughtful rebuttals based on what your understanding of what the other person is going through. Have a little empathy, imagine yourself in their shoes, & for the love of God, listen.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend/week/whenever you find yourself reading this.

As always,

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I Guess I Need To Learn To Shut My Damn Mouth

I am someone who is often outwardly opposed to the cold. I have stated many times in person & probably on this blog as well that I would be fine going the remainder of my life without seeing another “winter.” Sometimes that sentiment also takes the shape of “going the rest of my life without seeing snow” but it feels like a similar concept either way. I live in the upper end of the American South, & while winters are slightly less harsh here than they were growing up in Kansas where there is nothing to block the wind sweeping from The Rockies across the plains, we still get our share of winter weather, especially with the recent surge of Arctic blasts that climate change has seen fit to give us annually. Part of the one-sided contract that I have with mother nature is that “if it’s going to be cold, there might as well be snow.” Well, I guess this week I got my wish & I fear I may have second feelings about the contract I, undoubtable, am responsible for securing us all in.

It snowed eight inches here in Nashville this week, an amount that I have not seen annually since I moved to Nashville in 2010. In fact, upon a minor bit of googling, I have discovered the annual average snowfall for Nashville typically sits around 4.7 inches, so we basically doubled that in one sitting.

Now, since Nashville typically is a snowless place, we lack the infrastructure required for maintaining our roads & clearing them effectively during our winter storms. Add to that the fact that my HOA, a mindless bureaucracy that oversees the neighborhood I live is, has seen fit to not contract a plow company simply because there is typically not a need for it, & you get me being mostly sequester to my home on the outskirts of Nashville for the last week. I am, for all intents & purposes, sick of the snow.

Was it fun & cheeky at the beginning? Yeah, sure. Did I enjoy a day or two of making soups & trying to make my furnace get my house above 65º? Sure. But I am over it & I feel like that is the sentiment for most of the people on my social feeds dealing with the same cabin fever from the storm, even those that I know live in walkable parts of town. I am humbling regretting the statement “well if it’s going to be cold, it might as well snow.”

So what’s my solution? What’s my ideal outcome? Well my ideal outcome is that all the snow melts today & the temperature returns to an area at the very least above the freezing line. What is the point of this blog? I guess in some way it’s me apologizing to you all if this is something that I, & I alone, manifested. I was unaware my skills of conjuring were so powerful. I shall do my best to be better next time & understand the consequences for the simple words I say out loud.

If you too are stuck in this frozen hellscape, wishing desperately for a beach & 80º weather, take solace in the fact that you are not alone in that desire. In the interim make all of the soups, take all of the baths or hot showers, pull out all the blankets, embrace the hibernation that we as a species are supposed to participate in, but somehow feel we are above even though every other bit of nature observes it.

Stay warm in there!

As always, much love,

-C