an exposition of sorts

Those of you who know me well know that I am a quiet person. I am reserved. Temperate. If you are comfortable with it, we could just as well sit for an hour with not a word passed between. I don’t mind silence – I rather enjoy it at times: I think silence between two people often reveals more than conversation. Which is not to say that we should only communicate through glances or intimation – there are things in this world that need discussion, require discussion: things that must know the public forum.

But to me, the discussion of other people is not one of these things. I don’t know why, I can’t fully explain it – it is one of my peculiarities, perhaps one of my flaws. I don’t gossip, I don’t speculate. If you start talking about someone, even a stranger, chances are I’ll sit there in silence, contemplating the carpet. I won’t object – I just won’t contribute much. This is the way I’ve always been.

I have no sound explanation for it, except that maybe I like to think of only the good in people – and gossip, and discussion of personality, so often hinges on the perceived bad. Which is completely understandable – flaws are what make us unique, individual and interesting; flaws are what make us human. They are the very things which distinguish us from other animals, and from automatons. But I derive no great joy in discussing these flaws – just as I take no pleasure in the pain or misfortune of others, just as I can’t watch clips of accidents or most of reality television, just as I can’t watch the first half of American Idol or game shows that put people to lie detectors with the intention of hurting more than they help.

Which is why The Price is Right is, in my opinion, fantastic good fun – everyone wins, everyone is happy (as long as the price is right).

And it doesn’t matter the subject – family, friend, or complete stranger – my feeling doesn’t change. And it’s not that I see anything wrong with discussing other people, or with gossip in general – I think it can be wonderfully cathartic for certain individuals, and is perhaps the world’s oldest pastime. But I am just not one of its advocates.

I think about the stuff all the time, of course. Different characters I’ve met, the ways people act and react. How fascinating are we as a culture, composed of so many millions of contradictions and variations – and yet, when falling aggregate on a winter’s field, we form this great, expansive, homogenous blanket of man? The answer is: very.

Then how can I be a writer of worth, you say, and not enjoy discussing personalities? I don’t know – maybe I won’t amount to much of a writer at all. Maybe this is one of my weaknesses – what will consign me to the cold but cramped guest quarters of mediocrity. But I am also stubborn, the subject of another exposition perhaps. And so I will not begrudge you your public investigation of personality – I will just conduct mine in private.

And I will discuss, in my own muted way, anything else I have knowledge of in this whole wide, wondrous world – music, sports, film, literature, politics, or paint peeling – but just not, for reasons perhaps pertaining only to myself, other people.