Words

"The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them"
-Stephen King

Greetings and welcome to The Un-Zone, the official website on the Internet for all things related to Un. Accept no other imitations. Today's update is another one of those philosophical posts that will ramble to some conclusion. Please let me indulge in this hard-to-break habit.

I don't express myself very well when it comes to speaking. The gift of gab, as some might call it, is just that--a gift. Some practice--OK, quite a lot of practice--is required, but natural talent is needed. I could become a silver-tongued orator...if I practiced speaking for a million years and even then, I probably would feel like I needed more. Supposedly, according to Irish lore, a person who kisses the Blarney Stone will get this gift of being a natural speaker. I'm of the opinion that I could engage in tonsil hockey with the Blarney Stone and not get anywhere. It won't help.
I probably, wait, I know I lack confidence with my abilities, but I can't help it. I guess I am one of those people I self-describe as "cynical realists." There is a literary style called "magical realism" where people accept magical events happening in everyday life without a bat of the eyebrow. I accept life knowing that the cynical view of life--the road that leads to the world of half-empty--most likely will occur because someone else drank from the cup before I did and the situation won't change any time soon. It's a bad philosophy of life, but someone has to follow it. Let's just say I ain't a person who sees the world with pink-colored lenses.
However, I do consider my writing skills to be much better. The Lawyering professor I had might disagree with my personal assessment, but I don't consider their opinion to be of much significance. In the real world, lawyers do not write in the style they teach. Which defeats the purpose of the class. I digress. For some reason, when I write, my hand (or hands) operate at the same speed as my mind. When I talk, things fall apart. My mind works faster than my mouth which results in me ending up with an awkward pause, trying to get back on track. Either that or I speak before I've given serious thought about it, which happened a lot when I was younger and still happens now (less frequently). You know, the "Did I just say that and oh God, I did and now I look like a wacko and I hope you all forgot what I said" moments where everyone looks strange at you. It happens as I get so caught up in a moment that I have to say what I feel like. My comments tend to be sharp and they tend to irk/annoy/hurt people's feelings/verbally give a smackdown to other people. It can be entertaining, though I try to keep the more vindictive/wacky comments to myself. On a sidenote, I think it might be a good career move if I ended up being a TV judge in the vein of Judge Judy.
Some find this concept weird. I'm known to be a quiet person, but most people only remember the times when I go off and lauch several zingers. Like at the Women in Law Pub Night when I did impressions and pulled out a couple (quite a few) decidedly un-PC jokes in a deadpan. Or when I went off the wall in Constitutional Law and derided the Bush administration on their definitions of "justification" and "torture." Blunt sarcasm is a good thing, but it has limits.

When it comes to expressing how I feel, that's a different story. I have problems with that. With the tendencies I have to say mean things (which tend to be the truth most of the times, though I say stuff out of anger and frustration) or amazingly dumb things, I clam up a lot. Which prevents a lot of problems, but sooner or later, I just let loose and put simply, the proverbial "all hell breaks loose." I've done a good job and things haven't gotten out of hand...yet.
It can be a bad thing...this tendency to clam up. Which doesn't work too well when you like someone of the opposite sex and you don't have the guts to walk up to them and say it. When I do have the guts to say it (much, much later), they're gone or they've found someone who could actually say it/show it. Which might explain a whole lot. When that happens, there goes another wasted opportunity. And I move on to another and another. You just can't walk up to a person in a relationship and say, "Hey, I liked you and I didn't have the nerve to tell you, but now I do. You going to TGIT tonight?" and expect nothing to happen or for things to stay the same. At least it doesn't work in the movies or in books and in real life. So I guess that the operating principle of "better unsaid than said" works in these situations, but I might be working under a faulty assumption. Can't change what's happened. And no, I'm not going to name any names and make a bigger fool of myself...as if that's possible. Oh well.

I've already written too much. That's all for now.