I'm coming to realize, after finding some approximation of community, that my views, experiences, and closely-held existential beliefs are strikingly common on a level I had not anticipated.
And this is where I believe your words are valuable - even if they're saying things that have been said before. Because you can be one more voice helping other people realise that their own inner voices aren't just fantasies - that they're part of a common understanding. I know I never tire of just coming across those core awarenesses, again and again, knowing that we're dreaming the same dreams and seeing snatches of the same structure.
With as (relatively) few dragons as there are, and even fewer who are willing to speak at length and in detail about these things, one more voice saying the "same" things (and no two voices are really the 'same" here: they all colour the experience a little differently, all have the potential to catch at a heart where someone else's couldn't) isn't nothing. It's everything.
I say that, if nothing else, it's valuable to boost signal. Because we have a signal that needs boosting, a collective voice that needs hearing. You may catch someone's attention where others do not, by virtue of speaking in your own words and your own space and your own time, where others' words were older and elsewhere, by elsewhom. I will be interested in hearing it, because the song of someone's self-identity is a beautiful thing to hear sung no matter how many times you've heard similar - and you will strengthen the choir.
Can't come to those realisations about how common your beliefs are without a mass of voices, after all.
And if you worry about having something unique to say - I wouldn't. Like I said, you'll be unique just by speaking as yourself, because everyone tells the stories a little differently. And if you speak enough, you'll find yourself saying things that others haven't said before, sooner or later.
(For example, I'd love to hear you talk more about what it felt like to shed your cynicism and actually grok what people were saying. And I think that would be valuable for others who've struggled with the meme that "cynicism = the only smart way to look at the world" to see, too. I know some who still struggle with fears in their heart that the cynics are right, who could do with it.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-07-06 10:52 am (UTC)And this is where I believe your words are valuable - even if they're saying things that have been said before. Because you can be one more voice helping other people realise that their own inner voices aren't just fantasies - that they're part of a common understanding. I know I never tire of just coming across those core awarenesses, again and again, knowing that we're dreaming the same dreams and seeing snatches of the same structure.
With as (relatively) few dragons as there are, and even fewer who are willing to speak at length and in detail about these things, one more voice saying the "same" things (and no two voices are really the 'same" here: they all colour the experience a little differently, all have the potential to catch at a heart where someone else's couldn't) isn't nothing. It's everything.
I say that, if nothing else, it's valuable to boost signal. Because we have a signal that needs boosting, a collective voice that needs hearing. You may catch someone's attention where others do not, by virtue of speaking in your own words and your own space and your own time, where others' words were older and elsewhere, by elsewhom. I will be interested in hearing it, because the song of someone's self-identity is a beautiful thing to hear sung no matter how many times you've heard similar - and you will strengthen the choir.
Can't come to those realisations about how common your beliefs are without a mass of voices, after all.
And if you worry about having something unique to say - I wouldn't. Like I said, you'll be unique just by speaking as yourself, because everyone tells the stories a little differently. And if you speak enough, you'll find yourself saying things that others haven't said before, sooner or later.
(For example, I'd love to hear you talk more about what it felt like to shed your cynicism and actually grok what people were saying. And I think that would be valuable for others who've struggled with the meme that "cynicism = the only smart way to look at the world" to see, too. I know some who still struggle with fears in their heart that the cynics are right, who could do with it.)