And Here’s Another Thing You Don’t Like About Me

Periodically, I conduct an audit of my flaws. One of those flaws is that I’m a CPA, and I have to keep a general ledger on everything. Including my flaws. For each of the flaws present on my general ledger of flaws, I have a subsidiary ledger that tracks the nature and extent of the flaw. Don’t be alarmed. This isn’t part of some self-help program that enlightens one to one’s own flaws and provides a 12-step program for overcoming them. I chart my flaws to ascertain that the list is growing, and that I am achieving my fully flawed potential. If an audit of my flaws shows no new activity, I feel I have stopped growing as a person.

My foundational, cornerstone flaw - the one that serves as my personal mission statement and defines my style - is my uncommunicative nature. That flaw has been repeatedly addressed on report cards, within performance evaluations and psychological screenings, and as grounds for divorce proceedings. It also functions as a spontaneous combustion point for general-purpose scoldings.

I’m confused. To this day, as I conduct my flaw audits, I don’t know whether to classify my state of incommunicado as an asset or a liability. My detractors most certainly classify it as a liability; otherwise I don’t think those veins would be bulging in their necks and foreheads. Apparently they don’t understand that, were I to suffer enlightenment and begin communicating with them, those veins would explode upon the impact of my communications. If it’s better to say nothing at all when you can’t say something nice, these people should be thrilled that I’m a voluntary mute. Had Helen Keller shared my mindset, her awakening would not have been such a heart-warming tale. She likely would have been drowned in the very tub of water that elicited her first utterances.

So what’s wrong with being uncommunicative? Why is it anybody’s damned business what I’m thinking? Why does the rank-and-file population suppose it is their inalienable right to share in my personal introspection? Or my personal cerebral vacuum?

The mucosal pile of worms in my cranium is not public domain property, and I am not mandated by any law, whether natural or legislated, to open the gate to anyone. I’ll gladly pass title to any sorry bastard who is willing to bear the burden of ownership. Be forewarned; it’s a high-maintenance parcel. It’ll suck the joy right out of a ticker-tape parade. Vocalizing what goes on in here is like hitting your thumb with a hammer. Then hitting your other thumb with a hammer. First I think it; then I have to say it? How redundantly painful!

Ever since I was filling diapers with Gerbers, chatty people have attempted communication with me. I tried precociousness for awhile:

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Bradley?"

"I want to be interesting. I’ve yet to note any competition in that field."

"If you want to make friends, you should try to be more social, Bradley."

"And you should try to be better looking, so I guess we both have a project."

Having cleansed my parents’ home of any willing visitors, I decided it was best to fall back on catatonia. It was better if people couldn’t quite put their finger on why they didn’t like me. Maybe it was their fault.

The ensuing years of voiceless stupefaction elicited hearing tests, vision tests, Rorschach-blot tests, "special" sessions with "special" teachers, and general confusion among those trying to "help" me. They never understood what I understood: most of what they communicated to me was not worth communicating at all, and I feared sounding like that. I heard inane babble, and I hated the idea that I, too, may only be capable of inane babble. Listening to other people made me yearn to rip the fuckin’ tongue right out of my own mouth as a selfless, preemptive gesture of compassion for others. While adults prodded me with stimuli, I was thinking, "I hope I don’t grow up to be as stupid as you are." Now, as an old man, I sit dormant among adults while the babble swirls around me and I think, "I hope I didn’t grow up to be as stupid as you are. I’ll just sit here silently so none of us finds out."

I can impart All Of The World’s Knowledge According To Brad in about four minutes. Then I begin repeating myself. That grants me elite stature, given my observation that most people are good for about two-and-a-half minutes. But they continue, unaware that their taped loop has become worn and scratchy. They fill the void with ultramarathonic dissertations on their favorite subject: themselves. They equate their vocal cord vibrations with a heartbeat; if it stops, they must be dead. Imagine how serene and quiet this world would be if people only spoke when they had something to say.

That’s half of everything I know. Any questions? Good. I was going to answer them with silence anyway. Just to piss you off.