Talking vs. Writing
Many of you probably don’t know the fact that I like writing better than talking, not that I am good at writing but sometimes I just can’t stand hearing myself talk, which also explains why I tend to talk very fast as I just want to get out everything without making myself hearing my voice for too long. (It’s true, I hate hearing my voice taped.) I know this may not sound very convincing as I am ‘quite chatty’. But I am here begging you to trust me that I prefer writing to talking.
The one very important reason that I like writing better is that I think it’s much more solid – a piece of writing is something you can keep and it’s black and white, forever. It’s also probably the field I am in that makes me realise how important writing is. (But being orally convincing is just as important in planning.) It’s probably the black and white part makes it very solemn which is what I think I can’t achieve when I talk.
Another thing is that I am trying to talk less because I have observed an effect of talking less – when you talk less, people pay more attention at you when you say something, at least to my impression. For example, when a gossip is talking, you don’t always pay her/him full attention, because she/he is always talking anyway. But when someone rarely talks has something to say, you tend to take it more seriously because you think she/he wouldn’t say anything unless she/he NEEDS to say something important.
I am not saying that I despise people who talks a lot (I may find it a little bit annoying though… so yeah, feel free to think that I am an annoying person.) or people who talk too much has no substance or that that I despise talking as a communication. In fact, I couldn’t agree more about talking being the next most important tool. In terms of speed, it’s probably the best communication tool in the modern world. I mean, what’s faster than talking to your opponent up front face-to-face. It’s also the most instant reaction that you can get out of someone. People cannot be more her/himself when she/he is talking. You always think people think twice or thrice before they talk – but they don’t. At least they think less when they talk when compare to writing. And there’s also no turning back when you are communicating verbally. With writing, you can proof-read it and fine tune the language to make sure what you want to say comes out right. But when words roll out from your tongue, there is no turning back.
The last very impressive speech I have heard was given by Christine Loh at the Central Waterfront proposal forum last Saturday. She was just talking by herself with no fancy visual presentation and yet her speech wasn’t any less memorable than other presentations that were presented on the forum – actually the message that she delivered was the only one that I can still clearly remember. See, talking can have quite a permanent effect too!
I think I just can’t handle the fact that I couldn’t master it hence liking it less than writing… and now you have just spent minutes reading my completely pointless rant. See, I told you, I am not very good at writing either.