I did my big presentation, “The Two Olafs,” at a retreat in Wisconsin this past weekend. Not a religious retreat. It’s a gathering of academics with Scandinavian specialties, some of their students, and a few other people who are just interested in Scandinavian culture. Once a year they get together at a nature preserve in Wisconsin.
The experience was both good and bad. I think I did as good a job with the PowerPoint talk as I’ve ever done, and the audience was attentive and appreciative, from all I could tell. I sold a few copies of my books, and got the nicest speaker’s fee I’ve ever pulled down.
The second day wasn’t great for me, however. I felt I’d been keeping to myself too much, which (as you know) is one of my besetting sins. So I determined to join the organizers for breakfast, and try to be part of the conversation.
I heard a number of things I disagreed with, but kept quiet and listened, attempting to understand and evaluate the things that were being said. But when it descended into plain Republican-bashing, I left the table with the words, “He never said that. He said he didn’t like broccoli,” and went back to my quiet area with my book. Then, when everyone else went off to see a movie, the final event of the retreat, I packed up Mrs. Hermanson and drove home without saying goodbye to anyone.
This is one of those frustrating things. On the rare occasions when I make a determined effort to move outside my comfort zone, I so often end up sorry I even tried. You know the old saying, “Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt”? My own best motto seems to be, “Better to keep to myself and be thought a jerk, than to talk to people and remove all doubt.”
There’s a popular idea that all a shy person has to do is take the risk of talking to people, and he’ll soon discover that his fears are groundless.
I have very little evidence of that in my own experience.
I’ve felt the same way at times, but I know the Lord uses me in spite of myself. I know He uses you too, though the results are often intangible.
Listening is something, too.
I find that especially in a group of people I don’t know well, I have to take things in, and it takes several days for me to process what I’ve heard and think of something to say about it. If I try to talk too soon, I end up saying something stupid. The result of this is that there are a number of people who’ve met me who think I’m either mute or an idiot. The ones who manage to hang on turn into friends. I have one friend whom I think I’d known for, I don’t know, five or six years, before I was remotely comfortable talking to him. Correspondence, yes. Conversation, uh . . .
Often I end up writing letters to people after having spent time with them in what I hope is appreciative-looking silence. It’s a little easier to engage them coherently, and to pave the way for, possibly, future conversation.
I really do feel for you. How many things have I driven away from, thinking, “I said one thing, and it was memorably obtuse/inadvertently offensive/shockingly irrelevant?” So: listening. Really trying to hone the listening skills. People do like to be listened to . . .
My favorite lines from Hamlet: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends/Rough-hew them how we will.” He does use even our blunders to some greater end.
I second the above comments. Anyone who truly cares about the truth and deserves to be called an “academic” should pay attention when you insist that someone should be quoted accurately.
So I imagine that the “two Olafs” are Snicket’s Count Olaf and the “glad and big” Olaf in the poem by e.e. cummings? :O)
No. You need to arrange immediately for me to come and lecture to your group or organization (for a generous honorarium + mileage) in order that your ignorance may be remedied.
Part of the issue here is that so much of what people “know” is bogus; things they heard on SNL, or filtered through Leno/Letterman/Conan. (Like the “fact” that Sarah Palin claimed that she could see Russia from her house, so that gave her foreign policy cred.)
And I know that I HATE-HATE-HATE it when somebody can cite chapter and verse to show that something that I “know” is nonsense. I try to swallow my pride and accept it, but my gut reaction is anger.
On the other hand, when I am convinced that I am right, and can cite chapter and verse to prove something is true, and I hear somebody proclaiming the contrary, again, my gut reaction is anger.
Proving only that it’s amazing that civil society holds together at all.
Who’s with me to elect Roy for senate or governor?!
May I point out that you tried a monumentally difficult crowd? It was a bunch of academics:
1. People predisposed to argument. That’s how you get ahead in Academia – you argue.
2. People with cultural prejudices that would automatically make you an outsider.
With a friendlier crowd, you will probably have more success. Maybe volunteer to tell a group of teenage boys in your church a bunch of really bloody Viking stories, while somebody else is responsible for keeping them disciplined.
Phil,
Are you saying you want angry men in positions of power?
Just want to be clear on that before I launch my (laughably short) political career.
Yes, angry men who aren’t going to take it anymore!! You want change, people? I’ll give you change, right down your throat!!