Just Ask

I'm a whimsical person. An emotional person. A person on the edge. Most of the people I've met in the past years have seemed like such neatly sewn packages compared to me. People with everything in order. Their houses are in order. Their jobs or careers are in order. Their education is in order.

A Dutch word comes to mind: "Stipt." The translation is "punctual," or "accurate," but I like the Dutch word better. It has a kind of pointiness that reminds me of life here, and what it all seems like outside of my little world, pointy, and pointed, a clear and clean, but very tight field.

I guess you could say that my life seems like the opposite of that. Things tend to multiply in my house. There's rarely a single clear, open, flat, uncluttered plane anyplace, on any surface, which seems very contrary to where I've been living for the past 9+ years. Not that the streets are clean. They're a mess. What people don't throw around in their houses here, they go out and toss on the streets. Oh well. Here I am talking about pointedness, and I'm getting myself all worked up.

Lately I've spent some afternoons on Yahoo Answers. It can get addictive. I start answering people's questions, and I can't stop answering. It can be interesting. I'm not much into asking. I can never think of anything to ask.

I've helped some people. There was a woman who'd put some nude photos of herself up on a website, only to take them off, and feel very shameful about it later. I told her she was just being curious, which is totally okay, that it was easy to click that button, only to regret later, but that it didn't matter a bit. In all likelihood, no one will know it's her, and she shouldn't worry. After all, there are billions of photos on the Internet, so what's the likelihood of anyone finding out it's you. She was very relieved to hear me let her off the hook. I think I was the only one who answered that way.

These are things I've stumbled across by accident, after doing one of my many, many searches for things. I'm a total Internet junky. Then, most recently, I stumbled across Cary Tennis's advice column on Salon.com, Since You Asked. I've read it in the past, but only coincidentally. Today I got more into it, my interest in advice having already been piqued. It's some good stuff. He's very good at straight talk, and what the English might call "de-whinging," I think, or debugging people. It's refreshing to read. I wish I could have him as an editor in my head. :-)

I came across the strategy of "dewhinging" on Moodgym, which is a worthwhile online therapy "course" that's worth a look, if you have the time and interest. Although, I could be wrong about the term.... I'd have to go back to it, but I'm pretty sure. I've heard English people say they were "whinging" about something, and then I saw the word on this Australian website. The English have such funny words.

I like the idea of "dewhinging," though. It's like all the weird, paranoid thoughts you can get on a daily basis. The kind of thought pattern that can trip you up for years if you're not careful, but if you have a strategy to keep that pattern in check, you can escape them. You can learn to "dewhinge."

Then maybe you can become like the people I meet who have everything in order. Their shirts are always perfectly ironed, and they haven't got any "bugs" in them to "dewhinge." ;-)

Just kidding around.