Talking

I have a problem. There was a time when I was not very social. I was isolated and had few outlets for conversation. That has changed in recent years, and I have been blessed with many friends who are often interested in what I have to say. This has gotten the floodgates to open where my words are concerned. I can't turn it off. I'll talk more or less non-stop when someone is around. I won't deny that this is obnoxious. Luckily, it fits within society's parameters for sanity provided there are not aggravating conditions. The story is different when no one is around. My mind goes on like a perpetual motion machine. I believe I've mentioned how this makes it hard to sleep sometimes. It's as much a problem during the day. I'm often worlds away while out and about on the street, and who knows what might happen when my attention is not on where I am and what I am doing? So far, so good on that, but not so good on something else.

It's not just that my mind is always working- it's also always sending the results out. I can hardly help thinking without saying what I'm thinking. That is to say that such is the case when I'm alone. I think clearly enough to contain the more objectionable and personal thoughts when in the presence of others, but the rest just flows out of me without end. I realize what I'm doing and strive to stop it, but these thoughts themselves I utter aloud. I dig deep for strength and make the greatest effort I can to stop it, but this achieves no more than to have me whispering my thoughts, or at best moving my lips while thinking them. It's something like Cyclops of the X-Men. He has high-tech sunglasses to restrain his laser vision, and other characters have their own means of shutting off their powers. I don't mean to say that what I have is some kind of power, merely that I'm something of a busted spigot. It may produce clean, sweet water or rusty filth, but always is it pouring out violently.

This may be why I have wound up headed in the direction I'm in. More and more, I've found myself drawn to performance art. What reason can there be for that other than to channel this unstoppable thing into something useful, or at the very least, non-destructive? I allow for the latter because, as I said, I offer no assurances that what I am putting out is all good. This very blog functions in the same way. I began it to get in the habit of writing, but it helps to rid me of some of my most persistent lines of thinking. Some call that cathartic, and that may well be the proper term for the clearing of mental energy that getting such stuff written down achieves. None of it so far has been able to really make a dent in the amount of time I spend talking to myself. Actually, I ought to say that it's not always myself I'm talking to. Sometimes it's an imaginary audience. Other times, it's a fantasy of me talking to someone real. That may not change anything, but I prefer to have it known.

I guess I want the talking to stop, but the thinking to mainly go on unimpeded. You sometimes hear of good problems, such as having piles of money and a dearth of applications for it. I certainly prefer to have too many thoughts to too few. Some overflow is a reasonable price to pay if any proportion of my thoughts at all prove to be fruitful. I could even tolerate the perception that I am eccentric verging on crazy if this is mitigated by the accompanying knowledge that I was brilliant or, as they say, 'crazy like a fox'. I'll leave it for others to say if there's any truth in that. I won't say so myself. If others do, I would be inclined to believe it, but I won't say so myself just yet. I'm waiting for certain more tangible rewards to offer proof of any mental gifts. In the meantime, I can do no other than go on as I have speaking my internal monologue and hoping that people think I'm on a bluetooth.