It’s a version of ‘playing the man and not the ball’ (as we say in Australia). I take it that the person doesn’t want to or feels they can’t respond to the content of the writing.

Robin, less is more?

What you said definitely brought up for me my days as a college undergrad — one thing I figured out was that a great way to get As was to stick to simply demonstrating in the papers that I wrote that I’d done the reading, and steer clear of expressing an opinion. That worked well for me, but then, inevitably, there were ways in which this way of being started to seep over into the rest of my life, with consequences I wasn’t as happy with. Practicing being spontaneous, as you talk about, and just speaking from the gut at times, has been an edgy but helpful exercise for me too.

This is SO liberating!! Yes! Bless you for writing this. I just love your free spirit and open mind. You have a gift for setting others free.

There is an aspect of this that I’ve learned through my own life experience (for me). I used to feel exactly how you describe here, many years ago. But today I know something very different. Actually a couple of things different.

One: there are many ways of learning. Sometimes schooling can be and sometimes firsthand life experience is the best teacher.

And two: we often miss something crucial when we try to learn everything that is already written about a certain topic. We often end up simply writing or doing what has ALREADY been written or done. We are learning all that is known to date on a topic, which may have it’s place, BUT… I’ve discovered that by trusting my intuition and innate intelligence, and drawing upon my own life experience that I more often than not bring something “fresh” to the table.

I did not know this consciously at first until people started to tell me, people with many degrees and much more training and so on. And they would ask, “Where did you read that, learn that. Who did you study with? And so on. It was then that I realized that they unknowingly gave me the gift of letting me see myself through their eyes, but also that there is MUCH value in NOT being influenced by what has already been learned or written about a certain topic.

There is another part to this. It can often seem daunting or frightening to go into a discussion, a writing, a meeting, whatever and trust that what we are feeling and receiving for information from within ourselves…could possibly be right, and maybe ground breaking…and maaaaybe even brilliant. Maybe even a whole NEW way of seeing and doing things. This can be especially hard when what WE are thinking, feeling, understanding is totally UNLIKE what everyone else is thinking, feeling, saying. It really does take guts to be who we are.

With time and age I’ve finally learned not only to trust myself, but to give myself the luxury of this type of exploration, even within a group of people, even when what I am about to say goes against everything so far said.

There is even a deeper level to this. When we DON’T allow ourselves to say, do, think — EVEN when we don’t have the expertise that others might have — we are denying our whole life force, our whole existence. We miss the opportunity of finding out who we are. We miss our own rise to brilliance. We don’t grow. We live in fear of the very things you describe here, rejection and attack (which is rejection). We fear the, “Who are you say that? WE are the experts. You don’t even have any training in this. You don’t even have a degree.” And so on. Which of course is also a form of control.

I am so proud of you for choosing to be a free thinker and live with an open heart.
It makes you VERY powerful.
This post is a biggy.
Hugs,
Robin