February 27, 2011

• A fireside chat

  Princeton: Come now, Frederick, what do you think of talking?

  Frederick: Talking? What do I think of talking?

  Princeton: You heard me fine. What do you think?

  [Pause. Frederick thinks.]

  Frederick: I certainly do have thoughts about talking. But I don’t think I’ve ever spoken them, so that my words were literally recoiling on themselves.  To talk—and to assess that one is doing so!

  Princeton: Well, if these thoughts have been waiting in the dock ’til now, I’m sure they’ll be glad to finally be free.

  Frederick: Talking is a necessity only for the right kinds of moments.  I find that most people talk as though there is some game they would be losing if they didn’t.  I’ve never shared their assumption, and there are many people I’ve often wished would suddenly realize it and wander off in some direction other than mine.

  Princeton: Ah, what a miser you are! I was hoping you were going to present a more gilded first-look at the act of producing our auditory children, the words we speak.  You almost make me tremble in my boots at your silently calculated fury.

  Frederick: Oh, well I like talking to you.  You seem to get it.  Every conversation with you seems to have a purpose.  I never get bored during our talks.

  Princeton: Why thank you.

  Frederick: What do you think of talking, Prince?  As long, that is, as we wanted to keep on with the delightful effects of our self-referential analysis.

  Princeton: Ah, how splendidly you phrase that!  Speaking of delightful effects.  And that, my gloomy companion, sums up my sentiments as well I ever could have.  Talking allows us to invade reality at the mere ‘flick of the wrist’, as it were, and it seems almost insane that the power is actually our own.

  Frederick: Insane? What do you mean insane?

  Princeton: I mean we all find it would be surprising beyond degree if an animal began talking to us.  But what is so different about our ability to talk?  Is it not just as astonishing? 

  Frederick: I think the talking animal would be surprising because it had never talked before, and then suddenly began talking.

  Princeton: Perhaps.  But again, perhaps it is still so that people don’t really find the pure joy of creating ideas in the air at will every time they go to do so.

  Frederick: I will grant as much. Do go on, I find your enthusiasm quite entertaining.

  Princeton: A show to you, am I?  Very well, then, I’ll continue.  You can see I do like talking quite a bit more than you do.  And it is not only for the very fact of talking, but the sheer improbability of speaking correctly that makes it so much fun. 

  Frederick: Grammar?

  Princeton: No, not grammar!  Grammar is only to keep the plebian class under some sort of necessary control, but so many people think that they become kings if they know a bit about it.  It’s really not the point.  The fun of talking is that we don’t know what other people will say, and then how we’ll respond.  So we are routinely and continually posed with situations in which it is uniquely improbable that we will say just what we should and as we should.  It’s the quick find-and-capture of the exact words we want that make a successful run while talking so very extremely exciting.

  Frederick: “Very extremely exciting”?

  Princeton: As you can see, that run was far from what it could have been.

  [Laughing]

  Frederick: Indeed! 

  Princeton: But now we come to the point, the place in the woods where the two roads diverge.  There are two kinds of people in life.  Some think that talking is the natural way of things, and that silence needs some special reason for happening.  Others, such as yourself, are the opposite. You find talking to need the special reason.

  Frederick: I would say that is precisely it.  For me, silence is the sweet and savory default.

  Princeton: Yes, while I on the other hand am quite the talking-kind.  I am glad that by happenstance you find pleasure in our conversations, but really I don’t have much control over that.  Often I have no idea where things are going to go, and if I think of something I go just on the whim of it.

  Frederick: Yes, but you still assume things about talking that make it so conversation never heads off the right track.  Some people will start conversations about minutiae, and have no tendency to steer it towards anything worthwhile.  It was as if mere noise was the point.

  Princeton: I do sympathize with you, dear Frederick, if only ever so moderately.  There are several ways a person’s own words can relate to him or herself, and some ways will more naturally turn themselves into good conversations than others.  Some people brazenly bear themselves honestly through their words; others use words to hide.  Some people create themselves and become truly alive when they talk; others slowly cease to exist by saying things just because it is—or rather because they think it is—expected of them.

  Frederick:  Now that is some sweet and savory music to my ears.  This is very illuminating. 

  Princeton: I’m glad I’ve finally hit my stride.  Alas, we mostly can never tell what a person’s words mean to them.  If we guessed, we’d probably always be wrong.  But if the conversation ends up a good one, I think it is safe to say they have a good relationship with their words. 

  Frederick: This is illuminating, Prince, but tiresome.  And all this time we have been erring on the side of talking, as if we could debate verbally how valuable is silence!  Let us then give him his time, and see what the worth of a good round of talking is next to the serene and unbroken world of silence.

  • 1:51 am
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