Rambling

Recently, I sat down to start writing with what I thought was a clear focus in mind. I wrote quickly and steadily, more quickly than usual, in fact. There was only one problem. Eight hundred and thirty-two words later, I was nowhere near my original thought. I’d somehow progressed through at least three partial trains of thought that somehow, maybe loosely connected. But, the first one didn’t have an ending, the second was simply there, and the third really didn’t have a beginning.

I apparently just needed some rambling time.

Perhaps sometime in the near future I will sit down and split the rambling out into coherent blog posts or articles, fully fleshing out each of the partial thoughts. But in the meantime, the rambling itself introduced a new thought: the fact that we all need to ramble a bit.

Any of us who have had any interaction at all with at least one other human being have heard rambling at some point in our lives. Sometimes rambling pours from someone who simply has the need to talk. If you are or have ever been a young mama, you’ve probably experienced that need! Other times, rambling comes from the need to organize thought, which some people do best through trying to ramble through what they’re thinking.

That is where I was the evening I typed over eight hundred rambling words. I needed to process. I needed to think something out. I needed to retrieve an idea that was floating somewhere in the shadowed corners of my brain but couldn’t quite form itself. So, I had to ramble. I just didn’t recognize the need until later.

Here’s the problem. Rambling is, for the most part, considered to be a negative thing – and that’s not an unfair consideration. In many situations, rambling wastes time and energy. It causes us to miss matters of importance buried in too much nothingness. It exhausts the young mom and misdirects real communication between a married couple. It skirts issues and delays problem-solving. It keeps relationships shallow.

Most of the time.

Except in those times when it serves the opposite purpose. When it becomes useful. But how do we know the difference? How do we make good use of rambling when it’s needed?

I don’t really have a good answer. But I can’t help but wonder if one of the secrets might be intentionality. You see, I rambled that night because I needed to grab hold of a real idea – I just didn’t know how to get to it without expressing a whole slew of other ideas in the process. Sometimes, I need to ramble verbally with someone else, gaining their input as I seek to grab the illusive thought. Other times, writing is better because I can process what I’m trying to say better through the written word than the spoken.

In either situation, though, it needs to be intentional. Not just rambling for the sake of putting words out there, whether written or spoken. But rambling because I know a thought – a good thought – is hidden somewhere in the middle of a jumble of other thoughts, and the only way to free it is to walk through the thoughts. Like untying a knot.

Perhaps you’re like me – a little afraid to just ramble. Afraid you’ll bore someone or sound dumb. Concerned that you’ll never make any sense. I think, though, that sometimes the thoughts, ideas, bits of creativity, or spectacular solutions that we have to share are buried somewhere in the middle of a pile of rambling. And the only way to get to it is to process the randomness that surrounds it.

May we never waste our words, our thoughts, or our relationships on idle words. But, may we also not be afraid to ramble now and then, trusting that those intentional rambles will lead us to something real, meaningful, and even productive.