Creating My Narrative

Another blog post, another pretentious title.

And already I am slipping into a familiar vernacular - talking to myself, whilst being aware that I might not be alone and others might be listening.

Yet this is not about my outward narrative. This is not about how I am perceived; this is not what I am about; this is not ‘my jam’; this is not how I want others to remark on my existence (not that I expect that).

This is literally about how I communicate. Or - more accurately - how I am failing to communicate.

Okay, so strictly that isn’t true - quite clearly here I am communicating, possibly adequately, about my current mental hurdle.

But this is the best I can do.

I’m beginning to realise that I am not very good at talking to people.

I rely heavily upon existing tropes, cliches, memes - parroting conversations I have heard from TV, film, theatre, books, radio, and so forth. And the form of my dialogue is deeply rooted in how I was educated, brought up, and socially integrated.

As such, it conforms to a lot of what would be termed “norms”, in the sense of a White-British late-20th century world-view, from a fairly Christian integration.

And until recently that wasn’t really challenged.

How would it be when I work in a ‘standard’ work environment, and socialise with like-minded people?

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But a lot of what I say needs to be challenged; it needs to hold up to scrutiny.

But that’s not really what I started this blog about - that was about how I’m worried that I don’t really have an original dialogue right now. It is very easy to slip into a way of talking that is based around preconceived ideas, than it is to be original in what I say.

Now. I completely realise that it is not possible to be completely original for the whole conversation - cliches are only cliches because they became so popularised. It is not bad, per say, to end up using them. Often common references help overcome a communication problem.

But what if you get to the point of not thinking before you speak (because it is so much easier not to), and you don’t really know what you’re trying to say anymore?

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That’s a question I am asking myself at the moment, and I don’t even know if I understand the question - nor whether I have accurately portrayed it here.

But it is a question I need to answer.

And I’ll need to try and figure out how.