On and On

Repetition ad nauseum

© Linda Sue Grimes

Aug 20, 2007

Some people like to hear the sound of their own voice. Creativity and poetry require a measure of repetition but not ad nauseum.


Again, no more could I do at that point. But then she starts at it again, telling me she thought she might be in the right area, she had been there only once before, but she was so frustrated, she wondered why she was being punished for just trying to find a spiritual group.

And on and on and on. She finally let me go, but it was so frustrating just sitting there listening and listening to the same complaints over and over again. Listening to her complain about how we did not have the address listed: what were we afraid of? Have we had burglaries? She just could not stop speculating about why we were not listed.

Oh, yeah, did I tell you how frustrated she was? She was so frustrated that our address was not listed along with the phone numbers. She could think of no reason why our address should not be listed with phone numbers.

What are people to do? People who just want to attend a service, and there are the phone numbers of the leaders, but not the address of the meeting place. She was so frustrated. Did I tell you how frustrated she was? She just felt so helpless, being so close but not able to locate the meeting.

Let this be lesson to all groups that advertise their existence with their names and phone numbers of their leaders: You might be really frustrating your visiting members, if you do not list your address as well as the phone numbers of your co-ordinators. Well, she finally did, in fact, let me go. And I just had to wonder what her own spiritual group has to put up with.

But many times, you will experience people in all areas of endeavor who tend to repeat their assertions. Maybe they think their idea is so good that they have to make sure the listener really hears it. Or their notion is kind of fuzzy so if they repeat it over and over, it will somehow miraculously become clearer, or maybe they just like to hear to sound of their own voice. Maybe the sound of their own voice is poetry to their own ears.

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