(Why ‘Rumination’ came about.)
Rumination is very much a product of an existing reality – the gap was there.
The gap? Some people are naturally talkative, some are naturally good listeners. By chance, I happen to be a good listener. The gap was for a way of sharing the things I hear.
I suspect that I’m a listener because, primarily, I find life’s made more interesting by being curious. Finding things out is, to my mind, often interesting in and of itself.
And leaving aside whether I find something out, as a rule I simply enjoy hearing what people have to say.
As a listener, I try to not judge. Or, at least, to not judge in haste.
Not being judgemental isn’t something I’ve consciously worked at. Indeed, I only became aware of it a few years ago. (It was an insight – indeed, a judgement – from a long-standing friend that I trust, then in the midst of a messy divorce and finding people were taking sides.) But regardless of why I’ve become aware of it, I’m sure that being non-judgemental is an important part of being a good listener.
By default I don’t ask many questions. I think that helps. I try to ask only what I need to know to make sense of what I’m being told. I try to avoid closed questions. I like to hear both what people think and why they think it. And, of course, loaded questions are only to be avoided.
So, that is the broad background. That developed into some hazy, unformed notion, with relaying the thoughts of others as the goal. The potential stumbling block that loomed large all too quickly was how relevant these captured thoughts would seem to a reader coming to them cold. My initial testing of the idea, though, was reassuring. There is a huge amount of universality amongst us all. And discovering that you’re not alone with your thoughts is reassuring.
And hence Rumination. Capturing some of the thoughts of the people around me – and around you.
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