Sunday, March 29, 2009

Inherited Thinking!

I've always prided myself on the fact that I try not to inherit thinking. I mean I allow myself to be passed knowledge from various people, my Mum and Dad to name a couple of the most important, but I rarely take someones ideas on a subject and accept them as my own.

Always asking questions...that slight whirring sound that on occasion gives you a headache. All this until recently.

I stopped. I finally took a look at a situation and thought I'm not even going to question it. The situation itself took place at a story telling night.

My good friend Christopher Lochery had put on his first in London at our old home The Old Red Lion. And I was going to tell a story at it. A personal story, one that I'd not told in a public place before. Personal in that it was to do with my involvement with a young lady. Tragic in it's infancy yet now more of a historic comedy.

I arrived at The Old Red and was instantly swept towards my old friends Shep and Lork at the bar. It had dawned on me that soon I would be telling an audience of a classic male mistakethat I made in the attempt to read a women. This short burst ending in quite a prolific journey.

Would they judge me? How do I come across in the story? Do I make her sound bad? Will it be funny? Will I shake nervously like a man who has just realised his greatest mistake? Will they be sympathetic? Shit...will the women in the audience pity me or think I'm a sad bastard?Will the blokes think i'm usless. Am I dressed ok? How many pints have I had? Christ what does that word mean, and why has it just popped into my head?

Ahhh....this used to be me! But not anymore. On this evening surrounded by complete strangers I didn't care. Whilst a lot of people around me were stressing out about the length of their words, and the punchlines with punctuation thrown in for some sort of comedy stand up effect my brain stopped working.

I just simply told the story as I remembered it. I didn't inherit any of the pretense performers get before public speaking, non of the desire to succeed and not fail. No particular desire to make people feel a certain way. Honesty.

I'd finished. People clapped. I walked of for another half time pint! I'm glad I had that experience and had managed to shake my usual inherited thinking from... myself. Damn it! I've been inheriting thinking all along. My own. Time to change that I think. Life truly is on the clock!