41 Gossip
The accepted idea is that conversation is a means to communicate ideas, practical information and intentions, for a useful purpose, with some gossip and self-serving showoff here and there to enliven it. Yet most conversation is gossip and self-serving showoff, with ideas, practical information and intentions here and there to justify them.
I do not understand everything, or even very much, of what is written at Opacity, but I love this one.
It is TRUE.
4 comments:
Hesitated to respond to this, because it's depressingly true. My department is undergoing facilitation with an outside mediator--an incredibly charming and supportive dose-of-sodium-penethol person. Ever since my meeting I've been disgusted with how selfserving (yet truthful!!) my testimony was. So now I'm cloaked with blanket of metagossip and, under scrutiny, everything I say is selfserving. Ick.
BTW, I often show your exploding duck to my classes before exams. Wondrously cathartic.
It IS depressing, isn't it? I am not good at social situations, really, better at one-on-one. But even with one-on-one I find myself doing the self-aggrandizing thing sometimes. HATE HATE HATE it. It's why I prefer writing - I have time to read stuff over and notice when I'm being self-serving instead of merely entertaining. (The two are often confused, at least by me.)
(P.S. LOVE it that you have found a use for the exploding duck.)
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