self-interview: take one

So I have talked to myself most of my life, many of us do. However, should I be worried about my sanity now that I am also answering myself AND recording it? This article says not to worry, talking to myself might actually make me smarter? With this in mind, plus the fact that I needed to practice my now rusty audio recording and editing skills, I decided just to dive in and do a self interview.

I figure, If I am going to ask the people I care about some heavy questions about interpersonal relationships, I should be ready to answer them myself. I also believe that being on the other side of the microphone and the questions is a valuable exercise in general if I want to become a better interviewer.

What I learned from this experiment is this: I actually prefer expressing myself through the written word or through visual images than through a formal interview experience. Although making recordings is not a new experience for me, I find that I am a bit nervous and long-winded when being recorded. And after the process was over, I felt as if I could have come up with a more articulate responses. Hmmm… can my “writing self” teach my “speaking self” a thing or two?

Each interview I do this month will most likely flow in an organic direction but I decided that for all interviews, I would like to focus on learning something about my relationship with the person I am interviewing. I will try to do so by posing the following questions:

1. From your perspective, what or how can I learn from you or our relationship?

2. What or how have you learned from me or our relationship?

I also would like to see if any interesting stories come to the surface by asking this question:

Tell me about a specific relationship that has made a major impact in your life, one that may have changed your path or direction.

Asking myself these questions was more than a bit awkward but I gave it a go. The recordings below are results from the one and only take and are only slightly edited to take ums and pauses out.

Learning from myself?