This guy talks sooo slowly. Can't speed up. The story involves old tape recordings, new videos, fruit, a cat, and of course parents. Then there's the outside, the inside, and the inside out.
Like....2Barbara Green and Meredith Moeckel
Comments
Meredith Moeckel Stan dear friend I really enjoyed watching & listening to this video (And I guess that I'm one of your 2 followers! smile emoticon ) I really do appreciate the efforts you've taken & continue to take in the process of trying not to be so very shy.. I will honestly say that there are definitely some people who get impatient with those who talk slowly (My father always talked very slow but since he.loved telling quite impressive stories, I guess people accepted it . Many times it drove me nuts, but I never let on).
As I've told you before I used to be extremely shy (and I'm sure that I was when you met me eons ago! ). What really helped me to get over my shyness was in my earlier years (beginning at age 16), my dad began taking me to bars. We all know that after drinking some beers etc , our shyness is really lessened. To make a long story short, I used to binge drink while in university, and throughout my 20s to mid 30s. Then one day I awakened without wanting to drink anymore. If. I went out I'd drink water, but I realized that I'd lost most of my shyness by simply remembering the false courage I'd developed over the years.
(I shouldn't have began this long reply from my cellphone darnit! It's kinda hard to do justice in the tiny screen, so please forgive me!). Make a long story short, over the years I became more of an extrovert because I'd learned that I love helping people & also love meeting new people. I best stop here since I can only review 4 lines of type! I must promise myself not to even try to comment on such a deep subject on my cell! And I hope some of what I tried to explain makes some sense!
I really admire your approach to trying to become more comfortable with yourself. Not everyone has the desire or ability to think as deeply as you do. Please give yourself a big pat on the back from me! Hugs smile emoticon
Like · Reply · 5 hrs
Meredith Moeckel P.S. in my 1st paragraph I meant to say that I am 1 of your 2 subscribers on YouTube, so I'll see your videos!
Like · Reply · 5 hrs
Stan Burfield Thanks, Meredith. I wish more people would make long comments. I may be wrong but I think most people who are not shy have been highly socialized since they were young, taught by experience and the ones they grew up with, to not overexpose themselves, not from fear, but just from the understanding that anything said can be taken wrong by somebody. My problem is that I didn't learn anything like that when I was young, just a general fear, so that when I eventually lost much of the fear, during this past year or two, I suddenly find myself with very few inhibitions from saying any old thing I feel like. I open my mouth and it all comes out non-stop. The dam broke. I'm aware of the dangers of that, so I'm trying to socialize myself as rapidly as I can. My number one rule so far is to not hurt anyone else in the process. I tell myself that I could have been born that person myself, so I try to not say anything negative about any person or group of people or belief. And, interestingly, the more I censor myself like that, the more strongly I realize the real injustice of thinking anyone is somehow less than anyone else. They're not. And the corollary of that is that no one is superior to anyone else. This is just as true, but more difficult to accept and believe because we always want to look up to certain people. I'm at the place right now where I'm trying to keep both things in my head at once somehow, that no one is superior to anyone else, but also that I appreciate some people more than others. There must be a way of doing that without being a hypocrite, but I'm not sure what it is yet. The best I can come up with is that no one can be a superior human to any one else, but that they can DO certain things better than some other people can. For instance, I can wobble my ears better than most people can. Anyway, what I'm getting at, Meredith, is that I really love to see a comment that's more than a few words long. Please do it again. (And I really enjoyed your story of how you lost your shyness. My father was a tea-totaller, so your method wouldn't work with me, alas!)
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs
Meredith Moeckel I really enjoyed reading this, and I'm sorry to say that I'm reading this on my cell. I'd like to write more, but shall refrain. That's cute with you saying your dad was a tea-totaller. Believe me, my dad was far from being 'normal', a word I really hate to use! Suffice it to say that he was in his 40's during the 70's, and into all that was popular during those times. As he said to me many years later, "I had no business being a parent! ". I was a rebellious teen, and went to live with him when 15. OMG I'm going to stop here! Take care!
Like · Reply · 33 mins
Stan Burfield Well, you turned out pretty good. Just goes to show that as big of an impact as our parents have on us, we have an even bigger one.
Like · Reply · 1 min · Edited
Write a reply...
Stan Burfield Meredith, do you remember James at the house in Chinatown? Like your father, he would tell these very long, slow stories, and everyone would listen patiently waiting for the excruciatingly-interesting conclusion he was obviously leading to, only to find that it was just a very dumb pun. And then he would do this strange gurgling chuckle at our sudden irritation with having been forced to listen all that time for nothing.
Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs
Meredith Moeckel No I really don't remember a whole lot back then. I really don't remember how long I lived with Terry. Plus, since I was only 16 I'm sure that my memories were somehow different from the rest of you! ... if this makes sense? !
Like · Reply · 3 hrs
Stan Burfield Yup. Makes sense. And I don't think you were there too long.
Like · Reply · 3 hrs
Linda Eva Williams I don't remember a James - do you mean Jim Brander?
Like · Reply · 26 mins
Stan Burfield Yeah, Jim Brander.
Like · Reply · 22 mins
Write a reply...
Al Broudy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvrh73BVraE
Bob and Ray Slow Talkers
One of the funniest sketches of the last Century.
YOUTUBE.COM
Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 1 · 2 hrs
Stan Burfield Hilarious! Yes, that's how I feel watching myself talk! I even cross my legs like that to stall for time. ha ha
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Write a reply...
Jenny Getsinger I will never forget that slide show you gave that took two long evenings, but it was worth every minute (about the canoe trip from Calgary to Quebec City). Here's to slow talking and reading!
Like · Reply · 1 · 56 mins · Edited
Stan Burfield Ha ha! That's very sweet of you, Jenny. I think I called it "Big Slide Show". I'm surprised you remember it. Not only was it slow, it had literally none of the elements normally employed to keep an audience's attention. And the slides: some birds, a river, some people around a camp fire, a river, the front of a canoe, a river, a cliff, a river...
Like · Reply · 2 · 46 mins
Jenny Getsinger And the dog looking in puddles for fish. Metaphorical for all those things we do once and win at, and then keep looking for the rest of our lives (we had a FB thread about that). The other day, that story in the news about the reserve with kids who had...See more
Like · Reply · 41 mins
Stan Burfield Wow. So good!
Like · Reply · 1 · 33 mins
Stan Burfield Yes, I'm feeling strongly the difference between my life and those of the younger people. When I was young, I thought very little of how life was then. It was just normal life. We were all striving for the future. But now that the future is here, that missing past is so much more real. There definitely are a lot of stories from those days that are no longer possible. One obvious example was the freedom we had hitchhiking all around the continent. No one will see that again. I should bring back some of those stories into the present.
Like · Reply · 2 · 27 mins
Meredith Moeckel OMG! I could also share some hitchhiking stories too.. I'm very grateful that I had no bad experiences, that's for sure! Goodnight
Like · Reply · 1 · 24 mins
Jenny Getsinger Telling stories is important, even if they take a long time. If you are ever in Vancouver again, drop in and we'll have a story night or something. In people's homes.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 23 mins
Stan Burfield Meredith Moeckel Yes, you lucked out. You were a very attractive girl and yet had no problem. Which just shows how peaceful the whole culture was then.
Like · Reply · 1 · 21 mins
Jenny Getsinger Stan, have you read Rebecca Solnit's book on Walking? She said something like that as well, about the popularity of walking in the early 1800s. There was a lot of public safety then and it made walking in nature more popular. It's also about doing things slowly.
Like · Reply · 19 mins
Stan Burfield Sounds like a good book. I'll look for it. I still do a lot of walking. Every day. And climb the stairs when I get home.
Like · Reply · 1 · 17 mins
Meredith Moeckel
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 15 mins
Stan Burfield Thanks for the roses, Meredith.
Like · Reply · 13 mins
Write a reply...
Jenny Getsinger Did you know that students at Harvard used to walk over to Ralph Waldo Emerson's house in Concord, just to have a conversation with him? It's about 18 miles (29 km) each way. They would spend the night, too.
Like · Reply · 24 mins
Stan Burfield Wow. 18 miles is a good hike. I averaged about 15 on my long hike. But that was with a heavy back pack, about 50 pounds.
Like · Reply · 16 mins