"I don't think that being a strong person is about ignoring your emotions and fighting your feelings. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean you're a brave person. That's why everybody in my life knows everything that I'm going through. I can't hide anything from them. People need to realise that being open isn't the same as being weak."

- Taylor Swift

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

A Woman of Conversation

Now Playing: Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine (though the pressure's hard to take, it's the only way I can escape, seems a heavy choice to make, but now I am under...)

I will tell you that the single most important thing I've learned from high school, from living amongst some very intelligent people (although, to be fair, some very unintelligent ones too) is the art of conversation.

Sometimes words fail me, and I have no words to say what I want to say. Normally when I'm alone with just one or two people, and emotions are running high. But otherwise, I've begun to pride myself in my conversation.

Going to a school like mine, you spend a lot of time around very sharp people; people unafraid to take what you say and totally pull it apart, merciless to your feelings or to such alien concepts of decorum. It really takes guts to voice your opinion to such a hostile audience, but it's also enormous fun, and I've perfected the art of standing my ground and proving my point. I've made boys twice my size and with three times my ego meekly cease and desist and concede defeat.

Throughout history, women have made their mark through conversation. I like the power of intelligence, I like having the upper hand, I like games I know I can win. Beauty of the body fades, but beauty of the mind is eternal. I should like to become a woman of conversation; the kind of women who made men think.  

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

Yes, being a person of conversation has some real status

How would you have learnt about conversation if you didn't go to the high school that you did? You express some of the specific advantages.

And it does seem that families tend to close ranks sometimes.

And, yes, I would not scorn learning from unintelligent people too. (Intelligence is relative).

Wow. Twice your size and three times your strength or age.

That Florence and the Machine line: "it's the only way I can escape".

There are other things about the mind which fade fairly quickly, but beauty would probably be the last of them.

(beauty in this context being suppleness/flexibility. And elegance is another conversational quality)?