email experiment and voices | #sol21 Day 13

 This morning I started not here scribbling aimlessly but on email experimenting with posting by email. I learned (was reminded of) something important. Email formatting does not always travel well or display the same way on the blogging platform. When that happens, the result is rarely worth the time or effort of fixing. It certainly doesn't save time. Low tech copy/paste is easier, faster and works better. So would email in text or with minimal formatting.

That's the experiment part. The voices in our head when we blog is the other.

This morning I'm trying something different: slice builiding off post-by-email. So this landed in my morning inbox. Overall, I enjoy Lott's notability snippets but forget to check them right away. I did this morning.

In recent years, a robust body of new research has demonstrated that when we experience distress, engaging in introspection often does significantly more harm than good.

—Ethan Kross

—found in Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It (2021)

More on Ethan Kross on his own site. Looking for third party reviews, I settled on "Can We Control the Voice in Our Head?" in The New Yorker.  There's another review in The Guardian and a Politics and  Prose  interview video. Needless to say, the search led me down more digital rabbit holes. 

An Anampour & Co interview with Hidden Brain's Shankar Vedantam offers an another perspective: the delusional voice in your head that helps you adapt and cope.  

That in turn brings me back to what this voices kick has to do with writing, teaching or blogging. Self-reflection lends itself to writing; 3rd person goes to narrative voice, Much (if not most) blogging is self-reflection and holding a conversation with yourself and imagined readers. Will that conversation be honest but constructive introspection or a "useful delusion"? Is there room (or voices) for both? Get them talking to each other while you listen...and write it. 

As for unwelcome negative voices, like GirlGriot's "La Impostura," tell them to "hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back" (or tell those other voices to do it for you).

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It’s the 14th annual Slice of Life Story Challenge! 

Head over to Two Writing Teachers 

and see what the rest of this year’s slicers are up to!