I was reading through the comments from a 2003 David Foster Wallace’s interview and one of them captured something quite interesting, here it goes:
@NASkeywest - 3 years ago I am nowhere nearly as intelligent as DFW but I can feel and relate to him so much on an emotional level. His mannerisms, the way he seems to cringe at his own thoughts, the way he tries to gauge the room for others opinions or thoughts. I go throughout my life in an almost constant state of discomfort. I can be talking to someone and working, carrying on a full conversation, but I’m my head I am in a totally different space.
The thing that caught my attention was how I can also relate to being in a totally different space inside my head while having a conversation with somebody else. Usually more on the guessing side of things, doubting if anything I might be saying is actually interesting or useful. Usually that means that I am really (really) self-derrogatory on the way I assume to be talking or expressing myself.
Because, truth is, to a certain extent I can also feel the same dread or even fear that maybe Foster Wallace could be feeling whilst giving that interview, not knowing what others might be thinking of if somehow you’re being judged by something that might have slipped as offensive or inappropriate. And it hurts, it hurts not knowing if you can trust yourself to say the right things at the right time, and being always with your attention split in the midst of a wildfire of thoughts trying to concatenate a not-so-stupid-thing that might drive other people away from you.
And I do say that because such a thing has happened before, even more than once, and then you start to create this huge sense of self-awareness, but not in the good sense, and more likened to the “alert sense” of things. Expecting always things to go south, and always doubting if you can ever, truly, trust in yourself in order to be at ease and just say the thing you want to believe. A shame that such totally different spaces that we might oftentimes find ourselves with may be a certain kind of escape from the fears of being misunderstood. Oh David, I feel sometimes like you do, brother. I do.