Therapy and Choice
Jun. 23rd, 2003 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerIt's amazing how much better I feel after writing that last entry - just getting my feelings out of my system and out into the open is consistently a great relief.
One of the things that therapy does is give people license to talk about their problems. It can be very hard to unburden yourself on your friends, either if they're not that close (so you don't want to drive them away or burden them with your problems) or too close (and therefore possibly involved in your problems themselves). Having someone non-judgemental to listen to you, take it all in and let you just flow is a great thing.
I wonder if this is another thing about modern society - if tribal societies tend to talk more, because they all know one another - because they are surrounded by their community. The loss of this led to the specialisation of some people into 'listeners', to allow us to fulfill this urge to talk which couldn't indulge when our local connections withered.
If so, with the death of local community, virtual places like LJ give people the chance to be surrounded by distributed community instead. To have a group of people who you can unburden in front of, share things with and talk things over with, and never feel that you're a burden, because none of you were forced to read this, you all chose to be here, and you chose to read this far down the entry.
I'm sure a fair number of people skip-read many of my entries, and that's fine, because the possibility of choice means that those that do read it are interested and I never have to worry about whether I'm boring people. I used to run a mailing list for my friends, and a fair bit of traffic was taken up with what people had been up to. I always felt guilty about sending much of this to the list, because I've never been that confident that other people would find mostof my life that interesting. Here, I rarely worry about that, because nobody has to read this, and the people that read it do so because they've chosen to. It's a great relief.
One of the things that therapy does is give people license to talk about their problems. It can be very hard to unburden yourself on your friends, either if they're not that close (so you don't want to drive them away or burden them with your problems) or too close (and therefore possibly involved in your problems themselves). Having someone non-judgemental to listen to you, take it all in and let you just flow is a great thing.
I wonder if this is another thing about modern society - if tribal societies tend to talk more, because they all know one another - because they are surrounded by their community. The loss of this led to the specialisation of some people into 'listeners', to allow us to fulfill this urge to talk which couldn't indulge when our local connections withered.
If so, with the death of local community, virtual places like LJ give people the chance to be surrounded by distributed community instead. To have a group of people who you can unburden in front of, share things with and talk things over with, and never feel that you're a burden, because none of you were forced to read this, you all chose to be here, and you chose to read this far down the entry.
I'm sure a fair number of people skip-read many of my entries, and that's fine, because the possibility of choice means that those that do read it are interested and I never have to worry about whether I'm boring people. I used to run a mailing list for my friends, and a fair bit of traffic was taken up with what people had been up to. I always felt guilty about sending much of this to the list, because I've never been that confident that other people would find mostof my life that interesting. Here, I rarely worry about that, because nobody has to read this, and the people that read it do so because they've chosen to. It's a great relief.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 05:35 am (UTC)I don't feel like I'm inflicting myself on you (or vice versa) because neither of us is forcing the other one to listen to our problems.
Um, I had something else to add to this, but my brain just went blank on me. Darnit.
Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 05:39 am (UTC)And I'm glad I'm not inflicting myself on you. *grin* And that you aren't inflicting yourself on me. That'd be all awkward and, I don't know, sucky.
*grin*
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 05:41 am (UTC)It's been surprisingly quiet on LJ today. I was expecting at least a few comments on the two posts I've made and was a little surprised to see that you were the first person (and after several hours).
I wonder where everyone has got to.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 09:49 am (UTC)And I wasn't sure what to say.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-23 09:56 am (UTC)Yeah, I figured that most people were mired in Monday Morning Syndrome or had nothing useful to say.
About you, about me
Date: 2003-06-23 11:54 am (UTC)I "friended" you largely because you live the UK, but I kept reading because I find your life and how you write about it interesting.
So I still read.
Cheers, Katja
Re: About you, about me
Date: 2003-06-23 12:39 pm (UTC)Oh, and Leslie is
Re: About you, about me
Date: 2003-06-24 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-24 09:19 am (UTC)