Talking is addictive.

I found that I have become much more of a talker than I used to be. I have a lot of friends in other places, and I talk with them to keep in touch. That is a good thing. But sometimes I find talking so incredibly draining. I want to stop, but I want to catch up. Someone asks a question. I remember something I want to relate. Life is so exciting and I want to share it all. By the end of it all, my throat is tired and my head hurts.

Talking is addictive. I used to be a good listener, but I find myself talking more these days. I talk so much that I exhaust myself. I want to stop talking, but I can’t.

And here’s another piece of the pie: My writing is a version of my talking. The more I talk, the less I am able to write. My talking is not only detrimental to my mental health, it is a warped form of procrastination. I channel energy into talking instead of into writing.

It's not that I am totally out of control. I definitely make an effort to have balanced converstions, where both people talk in roughly similar proportions. But that's just it. I find that at some point I realize I have been talking more than my fair share, and I have to make an effort to stop. I once read an article on Salon.com about compulsive talking; Leslie sent it to me. Chatty Cathy can't stop talking, and Cary's advice is to think of all talking as "stories" and to only talk about what relates to the story, and omit everythign else.

My advice to Cathy is to start writing. I have observed a strong inverse correlation between how much I talk and how much I write. This was reinforced at the Mesa Refuge over lunch with Natalie. She noticed that the other gentleman there tlaked about his work a lot, and she commented to me taht the more you talk about yoru work as awriter, the more diluted your work itself becomes. I understand that. You write about things yo aure compelled to write about. You talk about things you are compelled to talk about. But if you talk about things you are compelled to write about, you lose the fire. Yo uare no longer compelled to write about them. Your writing becomesa struggle instead of an enjoyable process, and your writing suffers from it.

I don't know if Cathy would be a good writer, but I think the effect would be the same. If she wrote about the things she is compelled to talk about incessantly, then she may be less compelled to talk about them. I know I, for one, am excited to talk less and write more (though for different reasons). Silence will be good for my throat, and writing will be good for my, well, writing.