Fear and Shyness Ramble

A new connotation I would like to introduce: Ramble, noun, definition (according to me): a fragmented account of a person's ideas which resembles a mixture of the spontaneity of thought as it happened and the organization of thought on paper, speech, visual art, or any other mode of communication.

This is a ramble.


I'm beginning to admit I'm shy. I've never liked the idea of being shy, or liked thinking of myself that way; I've always felt that I was blatantly strange and that since it has been obvious to the world from a very young age, I could display myself with accustomed bravado. I preferred to think of myself as weird and misunderstood. But in reality, I believe I am shy.


Today in Speech class, Mrs. Bunch gave us all an assignment to stand in front of the class and tell a story. The only requirements were that 1) it have a clear point 2) it be brief 3) it be general knowledge 4) it contain no offensive language. There might have been a 5th. I'm not sure; basically, she did not care about how we presented it or the language we used (other than appropriateness), she just wanted us to have our first experience of standing in front of the class without prepared notes.

I knew about this assignment two days in advance. I picked out my story almost immediately--a simple account of how I once dropped a cake on my porch. I love stories, but I am not much of a story-teller; it is a skill I deeply wish to improve. Perhaps, whatever I told myself, I felt some apprehension because of this perceived lack of skill. I say perceived because I have only my opinion on the subject; I honestly believe my story-telling skills could use a great deal of improvement, but I'm not sure that means that I'm awful at it. That's debatable, and really, not very important at the moment.

I talked to Sir Timothy last night about public speaking. He gave me some valuable tips, such as saying sensational things if I have trouble getting people's attention, believing that I have a right to say what I'm saying, and to be myself. He told me, I believe, that I had no reason to be shy.

An interesting thing, the idea of having a reason for something. To have a reason for something implies that one has made a decision regarding that something. Often, we do things without making decisions that involve the logical thought process; often, the decisions we make are actually reactions to stimulus, decisions only in the sense that they are actions we have taken. The broader sense of the word decision implies logic.

I have been challenged lately on my reasoning for fear and shyness. If these things may be called decisions, they belong to the category that involves reactions rather than thought process.

I have noticed this past year a decline in my more irrational fears. Have I thought them through more than I usually have? I can't be sure. I believe this decline is owed to a few experiences and a general pervasion of such sentiments in me as apathy and bravado. Why should an experience or a sentiment effect my level of fear?

More importantly, where does fear come from? Fear may be described as an emotion. I believe it begins as an emotion. This emotion, once felt, elicits a physical reaction, the release of adrenaline, the implementation of the fight or flight reaction. I don't know enough about this to analyze it fully, but, at the minimum, I may accept fear as an emotion.

How do emotions change?

Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, creates reaction, reaction, reaction, which depends on perception, perception, perception. Thorny.

I believe emotions are changed by stimulus that causes other emotions. That stimulus could be a thing or occurrence observed from the outer world, or even a thought perceived from the inner world. This means that logic, which occurs in the form of thought, may be an emotion-changing stimulus. Not always. But possibly.

This makes me believe that it is possible to overcome shyness and fear through logic, provided that this logic causes an emotional reaction; because I think that emotions are changed by other emotions, which are brought about by stimulus.

I sat in my desk in Speech class (I should note that Mrs. Bunch prefers the term "Communication Applications") and thought of these things at their surface level. I went through logical thought processes regarding what I was about to do. I thought to myself, I don't really care about this assignment. My story is going to be a few sentences. I don't care what the people in this overstuffed class think of me. The only way I can get a bad grade is if I use profanity, lie, or talk for ten minutes. People are all around me now, and I feel no kinship with them, so I am no more alone when I stand behind the podium than I am when I sit amid this puddle of students. There is no reason for nervousness.

And when I walked to and stood behind the podium, I was nervous. I could feel and hear my pulse in my neck, and feel the promise of shaking in my hands. I told my body there were no tigers in the room, and I would have no cause to attack or run from anything in the next several minutes. I looked casually out at that puddle of students and reminded myself that I belonged to that body of water only moments before. And I was nervous.

I made a joke before I began my story, and the majority of people laughed. I introduced the setting of my story without saying so, I told my story, with minimal verbal stumbles, I added a couple of effectual pauses and verbal effects in my story which earned me a few more laughs. And I was nervous. My story ended up being a nice length, and I returned to my desk none the worse for wear. And I was nervous.

Why?

Obviously, this well-founded logic did not cause any emotion in me to counteract my typical reactions to such a situation. I don't like to think of myself as shy, and I don't like to think of myself as fearful of standing before a group. I like to think of myself as indifferent to it. But I think the truth is that I have a twinge of fear of public speaking.

Why?

It is true that the same people hear and see me when I sit among a group as when I stand before that group. There should exist no distinctions between the two placements. Yet there is a distinction. Students commonly hold (I believe) the mentality that they belong amid the little sea of students sitting in desks, which makes sense as they spend the majority of their time there.

I think I've tired myself out on this subject. It's something to think about more, I suppose... I started this on the 11th, I guess four days ago. I feel there was something else I was going to say... I wonder what it was.