Talking

I've always heard that when writing, you must say what you mean and mean what you say. But what if you have nothing to mean, and nothing to say?

And what if you don't have the means in you to mean anything?

Sometimes when writing, I feel like I'm just creating nothingness out of nothingness.

What if this is because I don't have anything to say in the first place, and all this writing process is is me gathering up words wandering around in me, and then organizing them into something meaninglessly material?

I always feel like there are other things that are more worth while to say in the world, but I don't know what they are. And there are other writers in the world who could say them in better ways than I could, and we both might be able to name a few.

I feel like I used to have a lot to say, but now I've spent my time being silent, and have taken to thinking  to myself where no one else can hear.

Maybe this is out of fear.

Maybe it's out of caution, because I've spent a fair amount of time listening to people talk. And when you listen to someone talk long enough, you realize that maybe they don't quite know everything that they're talking about.

Sometimes that can lead to them lying to you without meaning to.

Or it can lead to them sounding like an idiot.

Soon, they are someone who is just talking. I want to be cautious about that, about just saying things, because I want to only say things that are true. And I want only true things to say.

Perhaps all I am is another mouth.

And so was everyone who ever spoke. Perhaps all the great mouths spoke their words, and perhaps great mouths said foolish things. Perhaps great mouths became great because they abandoned their fear of saying foolish things, and once saying them, found the truth that shook the world. Perhaps to get to the truth, you have to be foolish. And perhaps to be foolish, you have to be honest. And to be honest, you have to consider the prospect that you are a fool.

And always the fear that I am just talking, talking. Talking incorrectly-- saying things that could be said differently, better, more beautifully and simply. Or more complicated and flourishy. And sometimes I make up words like "flourishy," and suddenly begin questioning my entire understanding of the English language.

I am so aware of the things that I am unaware of. And I have little understanding of the things that I claim to understand. And even that is an unconscious shout-out to Confucius.

I feel like the world is an ambiguous place where nothing is exact and nothing can be certain. And yet the people that live in it are so afraid of the ambiguous. The world is so unknowable, and yet we are all afraid of the unknown.

And we are all participants of that-- in the game that this world is the playing field for-- in the knowing and in the being known. And so few of us are known-- truly known. And so few of us know. And even fewer of us know each other. And maybe that's what this is about. To know and be known. To be subjective and objective, both the object being seen and the subject who sees. The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt speaks of this, which is another book that I started but never finished, because I started another book that I never finished, because I started reading On The Road by Jack Kerouak, which I haven't finished. I need to finish that. Perhaps that is what I will do right now.