Friends frequently ask, "Is there a point to what you're telling me?" or "Is there going to be an end to this story?" My response is usually a knee-jerk reaction to shut up entirely and not say another word for as long as I possibly can, although I don't know why I bother because this gracious action on my part is never acknowledged which leads me to believe my listener hasn't noticed that I stopped talking.
And I wasn't telling a story. I was relaying information. So there!
I get to the point by building it upon a foundation of detail-slabs, just as slaves in Egypt built pyramids upon a foundation of stone slabs and wouldn't some of us be sorry if someone had yelled at those slaves, "Would you puh-lease just get to the point?!" and the slaves stopped working altogether with an end result of: No pyramids in Egypt?
However, if I respond with, "Why do you ask?", knowing in advance that I won't like what I'm about to hear, the friend is taken by surprise. There's always a pause before there's an answer and it generally goes like, "Well, you were just going on and on and on... ." Now we're both embarrassed and a little bit ruffled, and we talk about something else.
Not getting to the point and enduring someone not getting to it are two undeniable facts of life. I admire a person who sets a limit to the amount of foundation-laying they will tolerate, and knows there will be some amount of hell to pay when they blow their whistle but the person does it anyway.
It took a lot longer than 10 minutes to write this.
There is usually no point and no point in trying to figure out the point of everything... and certainly no point in trying to figure out what my point is!!
ReplyDeleteWhat are you trying to say Axelle? Will you just spit it out? And when are you going to update your profile????????
ReplyDeleteI always thought you followed tangents in your explanations (Egyptian pyramid detail slabs) because we are always so excited to tell each other stuff because we find each other to be very clever and entertaining and funny or incisively intuitive and insightful (so even the non-funny stuff is engaging). And one thing just leads to another in a situation like that. That is what I was assuming aobut that.
ReplyDeleteBut also I feel OK saying I need to hear the short version of something if I'm in a hurry to get off the phone (as you know).