My best friend has a lot of good thoughts and intentions but has a fear of not being able to express them because he doesn't feel like he can articulate them properly- he fears even more that in a moment he will respond with words he forms into a sentence incorrectly. He wouldn't ever say something awful, but he will get himself into a bit of a fluster and his words won't match his thoughts as he so wants them to. He has actually done this very thing to me a couple of times. We have been talking and it will be a fast-paced conversation (if that makes sense) and he will say something that I know isn't actually what he thinks and watching his face become confused and panicked (wanting to clear up the confusion straight away), although we can sometimes giggle about it, makes me able to let him know straight away that I know he said something wrong and I may potentially even know what he actually meant. In this way I think it is important to ease our panicked ohmygoodnessIdonotknowhowtosaythis minds that if we are talking to someone or people that know us and know who we are and what we stand for, we don't need to panic about articulation. With my best friend, whose happy intentions I know, I always reassure him that it is okay. I either know what he means or I have the patience and knowledge of good intentions that allows him to find other ways to express a thought. Sidenote: naturally it doesn't mean that someone can say something outrageous and it's "okay because we know them and that's not what they meant."
I've been brought up to speak my mind (with respect) and the knowledge that I should stand up for myself or others if something has been handled badly. I think this is a good way to approach life- I also don't think that it affects other aspects of personality. For example, I don't consider myself an arrogant person because I will seek a solution to someone handling something awfully. I don't think me having confidence in this aspect affects the fact that I think I'm nice. Sexism has taught us that the people who believe women can only be "gentle" and not "confident" are simply incorrect. For this reason I will always believe we should stick up for ourselves. This doesn't mean we have to be able to articulate ourselves perfectly with words. There are many solutions to this and I can't write them all down, but for example, we may express our opinion through art or written words rather than verbal ones. We may dance or protest with a sign with a thought out slogan. We don't have to know how to say out exact thoughts on the spot. Expressing ourselves doesn't have to be this perfect well verbalised thing.
Of course you're going to need to be good at articulating if you're a lawyer and it's awesome if we are good at articulating and we should work on the art of articulating if we want or need to, but it's the art of expression and thought that is important. Ironically, I've not articulated this post very well. It's the furthest from concise you can get, but there you go ey! I kind of like it that way. My point (as overdue as it is) is that we can all express ourselves and really (despite my title) we articulate in different ways. And that's so good. We should all find the confidence to know this and carry this out every day.
Expression & Meaning,
The Girl in the Moonlight.
P.S. I'm blogging every day for Blogtober which you can read about HERE, and HERE is yesterday's post.
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