Pashalis said:
This brings me to a something I want to mention.
From my personal experience, I have a real problem to discuss and explain something to somebody in a coherent way when I know (or think I know) that this person can not crasb what I'm trying to say at all. And it gets worst when I know (or think I know) that the other person does not even want to understand something that I want to say from the get go, but is rather trying something else, like to fooling me or make me look silly.
For example: When I'm engaging directly with people in my workplace and they ask me for example about my diet, something in me blocks me and makes me somehow afraid, with the result that I'm speechless and coherent thoughts are disabled and when something is coming out of my mouth it probably doesn't make much sense or is very coherent. My mind walks away to imaginary things and I can't focus nor convey something calmly on my knowledgebase.
On the other hand, it is much easier for me to explain something to somebody of this forum for example, both directly in person as well as in written words. This blocking mechanism wich makes me speechless and hampers me from thinking and express myself clearly, is almost not there in that case.
The bottom line is, if somebody would interview or ask my about a given topic, who I perceive as not wanting to understand what I'm saying, or is not on the same page, I would probably end up similarly speechless and incoherent as Woods.
I'm not saying that this is the case with Wood (or part of it), just saying that I think I know of instances in my everyday life, where I end up similarly incoherent and at times speechless and thoughtless.
I don't know though if If you understand what I'm trying to say here?
It sounds like what you're describing is what happens when the emotions run the intellect. Basically, your emotional center takes over (or is usually in control of) the intellect and you can't say what you need to say because the emotional center can't access, analyze and present the data that the intellectual center could, if allowed to. The emotional center is really a terrible driver of the intellect - all fire and speed with no cool clarity and purpose. So, when your emotions drive you, and drive your thinking, you basically shut down when challenged, or, depending on individual temperament, do the exact opposite, which is get contrary and combative and use all sorts of verbal and logical tricks to 'win' an argument, leaving the actual data by the wayside because it's so much easier for the emotional center to use verbal and logical tricks (these things acting on and through the emotions more than the intellect).
It's really interesting to observe since, to my understanding, it works the same way in everyone who has the energy of the emotional center running the intellect (wrong work of centers as Gurdjieff would say). That vehemence (whether it is evidenced in shutting down and the mind going to imaginary things, or the opposite of going on the verbal attack with emotive tactics) is always present as well - the emotional center is great at emotions and utterly terrible at thinking, which is why emotional thinking leads so many people into disaster. Learning to keep emotional energy where it belongs and intellectual energy where it belongs is a very important thing.
My personal experience (which may or may not be applicable) has been that when the intellectual center is actually running the intellect free and clear, there is a coolness to thinking, a calm clear function of thought, unhampered by what's going on in the solar plexus, as it were. The energy of the intellectual center is always cool in my experience, never hot and frantic and urgent. Thinking with the energy of only the intellectual center is a completely different experience than thinking with the emotions (or having the emotions perhaps not entirely run the intellect, but color it strongly), again, at least in my experience. Often, when I sense my emotions are running my thinking, I consciously move that sensation, that 'feeling', to my solar plexus to get it out of my head and my thinking clarifies almost instantly. It's basically using the physical location of the solar plexus as a 'touch stone' to remember myself and stop the flow of emotional energy into the intellect so that the intellect can do its job with its own energy. It's taken a lot of time to learn to do that, and since emotions move so much more quickly than intellect, I'm often mid-stream before I can take control of those horses, but it does usually work. I say usually because, of course, there are always exceptions when I'm well across the stream and halfway to the next town before I realize my emotional horses have run away with me and I haven't been thinking in any real way at all. ;) I'm sure I'll be working on that particular issue for a very long time to come.
Anyway, it's probably easier for you to get your thoughts across on the forum because you're writing and not talking and that alone is a different process that tends to 'cool' things down by necessity because you're processing your thoughts a little bit differently and there's more time to gather them together. Just some thoughts on that since my center of gravity is in my emotional center and it's an ongoing learning process to keep that emotional energy where it should be and not muddling up everything else! fwiw.
