“English, but I suppose any language will do…”

I have joined Toastmasters International, and for the Valdosta Chargers, am a charter member. I have 2 weeks to fabricate my “Icebreaker” speech. Not making it up, but actually building, the structure and content of my presentation. The purpose of this speech is to introduce the speaker to the club. I am shy (more on that later). That is the reason I joined Toastmasters. I write on a we’blog’, maintaining my anonymity, and speak as I choose. I thought I would agonize over speaking in front of the members, but no, I look forward to it! To get up and talk – about anything, content is not evaluated – is incredible. And I use that word in its root sense – it is not possible to give it credit; it is not to be believed. I have found kindred spirits in that they love words, the history of language, the history and usage of the words themselves. Words and linguistic constructs are as tools to a craftsman; we build pictures in the mind.

Toastmasters, so I am told, was created to encourage people. To give them the experience and thus confidence to come out of their shells and be more formidable as leaders and communicators. I desperately need this; as I said, I am shy. Shy, in some clinical circles, has been defined as an extreme form of self-centeredness. How? Because the shy person is so very concerned with “what if they don’t like me”, “what if they think I’m stupid”, and basically, “what will they think of me?” All of these queries center on a reflexive subject. For me it’s time to grow up and be a big girl. It’s time to get over myself and get on with being the articulate and creative creature that I am meant to be.

As far as painting pictures in the mind: I am a visual thinker. That means if you say it, I see it. It’s like a camera in my head. I have a very vivid imagination and, at times, it carries me away. Gets me into trouble even. Sometimes a turn of phrase hits my minds eye in just the right way. I bust up, and there was nothing funny about what the speaker was trying to convey. Nothing like cracking up during a eulogy. I suppose this is due to my love of word history. I took Latin in the 8th grade. That was it, I was hooked. Words took on a whole new light (point in case – I see glowing words here.) It’s funny how a word meant one thing at one period in time and then came to mean something entirely different in the present tense. To me, the best stories not only convey a sequence of events, but the lexicon used twines around the central thesis and bears literal fruit.

And so it comes to my reflexive introduction. Keeping in mind that shyness is a form of self concern, I strive to be objective. If two people look at a star sapphire, the stars they see will be in different places. No matter where they stand in relation to the stone, they will never see the same star in the same place. I am that stone; we all are. No two people will see me in the same light. Our individuality prevents. I have been tasked with telling the Valdosta Chargers Toastmasters Club who I am. Each of them will see me differently, defined by different values, acquired by different experiences. Even as they hear the same words, they see my star in a different place. I can tell them who I see when I look in a mirror, but I can never tell them what mirror in which to look. What they see is up to them. What they see in me, in their coworker, in the human race. When they ask me to tell them who I am, they are asking me to look at them as my mirror, but they will be the ones seeing my reflection.