I sometimes think that if there were another one of me, a doppelgänger if you will, we’d absolutely have to live on opposite sides of the town in order to avoid annoying each other.
Let’s call him T-tam. T-tam and I would not get on. For a start, I’d be constantly wondering what he’d be thinking and he’d tell me he was ‘deep processing’ it. Oh T-tam you old duffer, you only say that to draw attention to yourself.
T-tam’s eyes narrow.
“And you Matt,” he’d say, “over-analyse people because it makes you feel less inferior about yourself, and less likely to be wrong about things.”
I do not.
“Oh you hate being wrong!”
I really do not!
“Yeah you do.”
Shut up, T-tam. You’re going grey.
See. Other sides of the town. He can do all the technical writing and arguing about Oxford Commas, while I write songs, or poems about bananas. Maybe we could meet up from time-to-time, and play Stressy Scrabble in Starbucks and confuse some baristas.
Anyway. There is no T-tam. And this week I have been doing some ‘deep processing’.
After realising that I was prone to interrupting other people’s sentences the other day, I’ve been doing my best to listen. It’s especially difficult when an opinion is thumping its way out of my chest and somebody is still talking. But it’s great discipline. Listen for the full stop. One beat. And go.
In fact, there have been two meetings this week when I’ve barely said a word. I hope that doesn’t come across as pompous; I really am just trying to get much better at listening and responding, rather than bursting in to someone else’s moment. My head has been a swirl of hundreds of clockwork possibilities, but none of them have ticked over into verbalised ideas. And certainly, the room hasn’t always been ready for me. I think deep-processors have to pick their moments and consider their audience. And sometimes, the time just hasn’t been right.
And anyway, T-tam would nick all my best ideas and claim them as his own. And that would do my head in.
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