I can tell you a million unimportant yet perhaps mildly amusing anecdotes. I can tell you some really funny ones, maybe, too; at least once in a while. I can say an infinite number of things about an infinite number of unimportant subjects: The kinds of things that are easy to speculate about because no assertion one way or the other with regard to these subjects will really shock or offend anyone. No one will raise an eyebrow. Someone might chuckle, but he or she will not remember what was said in a day or a month or a year. I can make a dozen jokes and several dozen silly or even witty puns, and a million or more out-of-place sound-effects. I can say something under my breath just to myself that is entirely inaudible, and laugh for hours about it. Speaking is easy, and I say so, so many things. The kinds of things that can be said, and the ways in which these things might be uttered, are so numerous. Despite this, I get tired of talking, because it's the things I don't say that are the most important.
Why is it that I choke on my words when I want to say something that actually means something to me? Many words might have little effect on the world around me, but there are some things that could really effect something or someone. By way of uttering these certain words, I might actually change the course of my life in one way or another; but these are the words I just can't stutter my way through. I might say a million seemingly unrelated things in an attempt to enclose the topic and by way of framing it somehow get my point across, but the result will be something of a spider-web of sentiment, and will likely result in confusion rather than clarity.
The words that I want to shout from mountaintops are the same words that I can't even bring myself to force out in a whisper. The things I'm most sure of are the things I'm most hesitant to say. I'm perfectly willing to say a number of things that I'm unsure of, and to present these ideas as postulations, but when I know something to be true for me, I keep it to myself and hold it close as if it could do no good in the world outside of my own mind. I truly want to say these things, because I feel that I often keep myself from expressing my most sincere or meaningful thoughts.
When I find that I really believe in something, or care about something or someone, I become so sure of it that I fear I wouldn't be able to handle the pain of presenting it to the world - that thing that I so adamantly believe in - and having the world snuff it out or throw stones at it or walk away from me as soon as they see it.
I'm caged in by my own awareness of the potential for negative repercussions that might result from things that I say that have actual weight to them. I'm tired of saying so many things that don't mean much to me, and yet not saying anything that truly means something to me. I'd rather say nothing at all than say anything other than what matters the most. I can't expect people to read my mind, and yet I find myself feeling disappointed when they don't.
Speaking a million truths that mean nothing to me feels almost the same as telling a million little lies. And the more I refrain from saying the things that I most believe in and most care about, the more I care about those things and the more I treasure them, and the more I fear that they will be ruined once they are expressed to the world. I've tried to remedy this by just confronting my fears head-on and saying what I mean whenever I want to, but the result is this: I end up saying a lot of things in an attempt to express those things which matter the most, but I never quite hit the nail on the head and so I just end up doing a lot of talking, and saying a lot of things that don't quite do justice to the way I feel.
My heart feels about full to a bursting-point, so I'm going to have to find some way to express the love and conviction and passion and wonder and awe that I feel. Most importantly, I have to find some way to express these things in a way that doesn't request anything of the listener, and doesn't apologize for itself, and doesn't undermine or belittle itself, and doesn't dismiss itself even in that moment in which it is uttered. I don't know how to do this. I admire those who say nothing, because at least they are saying fewer unimportant things than the rest of us.
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