The Tenth Version
You're just sitting there, waiting impatiently, for thoughts to come to you. Thoughts for what you might ask? Well in this case, it's thoughts of expression, as in trying to articulate something you've observed or experienced but haven't had the right set of words for.
I think it's interesting as a participant that nine times out of ten, waiting, especially when it's purely passive, is counterproductive.
Nothing really comes, unless you find some way to force the thoughts out, which quite never works to satisfaction.
I've gathered some insight into how situations play a part within the shape of what finally emerges. Not the waiting itself, but what happens around the waiting, and the friction of living through the small collisions of the day such as conversations that interrupt silence.
These are the things that crack something open.
You could be thinking about a problem for weeks, turning it over in your mind during quiet moments, and then suddenly someone says something completely unrelated and it clicks, precisely because their words created a new angle you hadn't considered. The thought was just waiting for the right conditions to take shape.
The moment you stop hunting for the right words and start doing something, I mean, anything, the words begin to assemble themselves.
You could write "badly" on purpose and as a way to let the real thing emerge.
Speak half-formed thoughts knowing the risk of incoherence would make you sound foolish and unprepared.
Letting someone else's idea collide with yours isn't always a comfortable collision.
Standing on the shoulder of giants is a neat way to put it. You have to bring you into the equation.
There's a kind of permission that comes with imperfection, as if when you're not worried about getting it right, you're free to get it real. The thoughts are waiting to be built, piece by piece, through the act of attempting to express them.
This is a needful reminder for myself to not put the cart before the horse, as in prioritizing perfection over production.
That's just not how articulation works. The first version is always wrong. Second version is less so. And by the tenth version, I might have something that actually resembles what I was trying to say all along.
In certain situations, this is already too late for the urgency of the moment. At least in this domain, it turns out the only thing I'm reliably on time for is realizing I was late.
So the waiting continues, but at least now it's no longer empty.
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