I was in line at an ice cream shop several years ago getting ready to order. Once I’d decided what I wanted, I started mentally rehearsing how I was going to articulate my order when I got to the front of the line. I wanted one scoop of cookies & cream, and another of chocolate chip cookie dough. I wanted the cookies & cream on the bottom and the cookie dough on top. I wanted it in a cup, not a cone, and I didn’t want a lid because I’d observed that they didn’t put in quite as much ice cream when they knew they’d be putting a lid on the cup
What I did not want to do — because I’d done it before — was stumble through placing an incomplete order, thereby obliging the server to ask “Cup or cone?” in the world-weary tone of someone who has asked that question a thousand times, and then have to blurt out “Oh, and would you put the cookies & cream in first? Oh, and no lid!”
After mentally trying out a couple of different ways of saying what I wanted, I settled on the one that seemed most efficient: “May I please have a two-scoop cup with cookies and cream on the bottom, chocolate chip cookie dough on top, and no lid?” I practiced that in my head a couple of times so that it would come out smoothly when the time came.
Then I wondered just how I weird I was to be doing that. How many people mentally draft, revise, and rehearse what they intend to say before they say it? Because I do that a lot. When I need to have a difficult or contentious conversation with someone, I try out various ways of starting the conversation, and the various things I might say in response to whatever the other person says. I’ve occasionally caught myself doing this out loud within earshot of other people, which is embarrassing. I usually say something like, “Sorry, just rehearsing a talk I need to give.”
However peculiar my propensity might be, I suspect it’s related to why I enjoy blogging. What I have to say when I compose a blog post may not be significant, but I love that I’m able to revise and reorganize and tighten it until I’m satisfied that I’m saying just what I want to say, and saying it as clearly as I can, before putting it out there.
And I’ve noticed an added benefit: Once in a while I find myself talking with someone about something that I’ve previously blogged about. Having already gone through the process of gathering my thoughts and deciding how to articulate them, I’m much more coherent speaking on that subject than I would have been otherwise.
Maybe if I blog on enough different topics, I’ll be ready to talk cogently about anything that comes up in conversation.