Posted by Thomas Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:59:04 +0000
Venting is extremely foreign to me. You feel upset and overwhelmed. You angrily spout out a bunch of stuff that may or may not be relevant, meaningful. or pertinent to anything. And generally at the end you feel better or maybe after a little while, you feel better. Even though nothing has fundamentally changed with anything that’s going on in your life or whatever’s been bothering you. And it’s even worse when you feel bad for no good reason, then vent for no good reason, then feel better for no good reason. The problems still exist, remain unresolved, and no solutions created, yet you just feel differently about them now. That just doesn’t compute. Which is why it seems such a foreign concept to me. Perhaps because I view it more as a problem solving strategy, when in fact it is not. And the reason I view it as a problem solving strategy is because everyone and their dog wants you to talk stuff out whenever you feel like this, like it will solve all of those problems that have led to this. It solves the problem of how you feel, but little else. But is that really a solution at all? Can feelings really be solved? Of course not! They are “just feelings”. But it’s not like they can be ignored (well, I bet I do a more than fair job at that…). They must be dealt with somehow. But why? I guess it’s a little too much like cleaning to me. Yeah, I could clean this stuff, but in a day or a week, it will be dirty again. And, in all honesty, I’d rather just leave it dirty for a long time than have to clean it up once a week. There is no satisfaction cleaning it up once a week. (Well, there is little satisfaction in cleaning at all for me.) But, it gets the monkey off my back. So, it’s like, if you feel bad for no good reason, then why deal with it, because eventually you’ll feel better for no good reason. Shouldn’t it just balance itself out? Seriously, what’s up with feeling bad for no good reason? Why does that happen? Anyway, doesn’t that make sense? If you feel bad for no good reason, and you wait long enough, shouldn’t you feel better for no good reason? Why am I trying to justify this to myself? I dunno, but I need to go to bed.
So, instead of trying to “solve” your “feelings”, wouldn’t it be more advantageous to actually fix the problem instead of fixing the feelings associated with the problem? Where by fixing the problem, ergo, vis à vie, ipso facto, e pluribus unum, you fix the feeling.
venting is such a common way of dealing with things because it’s a way of actualizing the problem. if you keep it inside, you’re all bottled up and it builds and builds. just by talking to someone (it’s better in person, but through a blog is good too), it forces you to put in words what you’re going through. it makes it real instead of just a jumble of thoughts/emotions. also, often venting leads to problem solving… instead of ruminating aimlessly, it gets it out there where you can do something about it.
i agree with the Jenn’s comment. Also – in my head it’s usually worse than it really is…by getting it out and talking through it, I realize it’s solvable – it’s not this big problem that overwhelms me – it’s something that I can solve piece by piece…but I don’t realize that until I get it out and put words to the problem. A listening ear is an amazing counselor.
Sidenote: I think part of the reason it doesn’t make sense is a gender thing. Men generally like to fix things – nothing wrong with that – the way God made you. So when women (generally) vent, they want that listening ear but men have a hard time not wanting to solve it because why else would you talk about it? “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” talks about that some.