Apropos of nothing . . . except maybe our extreme, possibly terminal narcissism . . . why do people insist on saying, "She's seven, going on eight"? What the hell else would she be going on? Is this evidence of some intrinsic human desire to shoot pointless noise out of our mouths? Is it projectile vocalizing? At the mall, do you hear just a bit of verbal superfluity, speed, and vapidity? Would we rather make noise than have money or sex? Are we so much about excess (obesity, war, spike heels, neon) that we'll say anything for the love of our own voices?
Has anybody out there got more examples of what I'm talking about? Or am I the weirdo alone in the corner? Again. Over there by the empty chair.
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9 comments:
Stone throwing and glass houses are not compatible.
If you ask the girl herself, she will insist on being seven until the day before she is eight :-)
(Believe me - I have four children, although a bit more than seven years old ...)
Maybe we should listen a bit more to the children and the drunkards. They have a tendency to tell the truth.
NotBetter--surely you wouldn't have me give up my spike heels? Oh, you mean the talking part . . .
RuneE, I can't remember how the kids saw it. I'm sure you're right. On listening and to whom, oh yes. And with some cautions, I'd include teens among those children.
(We're not on the same line, but a parallel one.)
To your point, we're born to chatter -- we're chimps. We can't stop ourselves. Or most of us can't, other than those seductively strong silent types.
Well, I'm certainly no "curmudgeon," but I can't even watch television. To much talking, this sometimes almost insatiable need to be noticed, acknowledged, important, always makes me nervous, and (once again), embarrassed. It's not being judgmental. We all have our thresholds.
AH, You've got to be right--evolution and all. And of course birds do it in ridiculous, beautiful ways. Today's oxymoron: concise bird. On the other hand, at Loxahatchee recently, I was marveling again at the goofy, endless chatter of the coots and moorhens, when a hawk flew over and issued two piercing shrieks, and that was that. S/he kept going, to do what hawks do.
So maybe we're drawn to Gary Cooper and more recently--who?--Kevin Bacon?--because they're other? And on high? A relief from ourselves? What we wish we could be if we could sew up our mouths?
But for the most part their characters, their roles, aren't narcissistic either. They go save other people. They didn't get a trophy for just showing up at the games, and neither will their offspring.
Stickup, although I watch TV--arguably too much--I completely agree. The commercials are obviously the worst villains, but newsy shows too. I loved the Rachel Maddow show for its first month or so, but I got worn down by the endless patter and repetition of points and ideas and rapid-fire delivery of same . . . . I admire her intellect and usually agree with her, but I haven't watched for a long time. I feel I'm being attacked by an ally (who, with Jon Stewart, seems more interested in preaching [eloquently] to the choir than winning over the other side). And of course I'm using Maddow-Stewart as only one example.
Kids speak in half years. Seven and a half
Gary Cooper silent types need to be tall. Kevin Bacon doesn't make the cut
The internet is the "new chatterbox" which, for the most part, is mostly silent. Isn't that considered ironic?
PA, yes, and the kids don't bother me. It makes sense for them to feel pride in getting bigger. Yep, on Kevin--I blanked on better examples. Yep, the internet's a weird case in this context. Thanks.
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