Owing to an incident at work last week, I've spent much of the weekend using my voice as little as possible so that my throat and lungs can recover. I found as I sat at home sleeping, thinking, reading, etc., that I have nothing to say sometimes. I wish I had something interesting, helpful, or profound to communicate, but I don't. For a few days now, I've had nothing to say at all to anyone anywhere about anything, and it hit me yesterday very strongly.
Most of us like to think we have something to add or something to say that will be of use. Maybe that's why so many people talk incessently. For my own part, I grow tired of the talking heads on the news, and I gave up on JK Rowling when she went on and on in the details about a room in the castle so much in Harry Potter that I forgot why we were in the room in the first place. Faith, madam, what is there to say? I don't know if I have anything to add or anything to share or anything to say, and it has been interesting to me to see just how many times I am tempted daily to open my mouth and add something trite or asinine.
I know that I am dumb, for I cannot speak, and I am not sure I am not dumb in every way. They say that we learn things when we young but only understand them as we age. I hope, as many of you can attest, that some things that make no sense now will mean more as I grow older, that as I am given to better understanding based on perspective, experience or inspiration I will understand why so many things vary so much from what I expected them to be. I hope that as I age I will grow wise rather than otherwise and come to understand the things I learn.
Sometimes I wonder why I do any of the things I do myself. Although many people, particularly women, think me a dork/nerd/geek, I have never gone in costume to a renaissance fair, and the last time I wore a costume for Halloween I was 21. I do what I do because I feel like it, because I won't feel like I regret it, and because sometimes the information given makes it seem like a good idea. All I know is that I made many choices based on misinformation, and I've tried the past year or so to inculcate in my students just how important it is to give accurate information, because some of these people will make life and death decisions based on what my students say in their professions of choice. I guess I do what I do because nobody else will, because nobody else wants to, and because nobody else will sacrifice what they have to do what they ought. This doesn't mean that I like it any more than they do. It just means I have no excuse.
As you know, one of my literary heroes is Don Quixote. My parents exposed me to great movies and great literature as a child, and I took these exemplars seriously. They're fictitious, and so their stories differ greatly from mine, but I do draw inspiration from their stories.
I am a knight. I have a quest. I made a choice to march into hell for a heavenly cause, and I know that I'll be bruised, torn and tattered with scars of all kinds as a consequence. My life philosophy can be summed up mostly in that clip from Man of La Mancha. There is nothing more to say about myself or to you if you know that about me. Too few hear and heed the call to lay aside their lives and tilt at windmills. We all think we can talk them down when we are fully cognizant of the fact that such a notion is futile and folly. I have nothing to say, and there is nothing I can say. What evil we cannot resist with our tongues, let us resist with our swords. When there is nothing more to say, the time has come to act.
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