What opened my eyes / ears is this: until he asserted it, I'd always
believed "talk is cheap". It's what I'd learned in school.
It's also one of those sayings "everyoneknows" is true. But truth be told, it's really just an
old wives' tale. It's really just folk lore, and I'd blindly
accepted the folk lore of it, unexamined, as true. Yet even though I'd
accepted it, it's never really sat right with me. It's never really sat
right with me because when I speak, there's a sense of
being
present
which is more profound than in any other activity in my life. So
believing "talk is cheap" while experiencing this profound sense of
being present
when I speak, diminishes the realest experience I have:
the experience of
who I really am
as my
word.
I started looking at it through his eyes. I started looking at where I
cheapen talk. But at first I wasn't looking directly at
where I cheapen talk: at first I was looking at
if I cheapen talk. The if resolved itself
very quickly: I do. I saw I do - no doubt about it. As for the
where, I only noticed what I considered to be trivial
wheres eg where I cheapen talk by lapsing into small talk
and chit chat; where I cheapen talk by giving over to
gossip; where I cheapen talk by being witty
or saying something funny which, more often than not, realized or not,
only serves to avoid being intimate. If I don't lapse into small talk
or chit chat, if I don't give over to gossip, if I'm not being witty or
saying something funny to avoid being intimate, then whatever I'm
speaking at the time wouldn't be cheapened - I see that.
The trivial wheres however, turn out to be not so trivial
after all. Talk is either cheapened or it isn't. And if it is
cheapened, that's never trivial. It's never just a bit
cheapened. You're either pregnant or you're not. You're never pregnant
trivially. You're never just a bit pregnant.
My observations of where I cheapen talk are all valid. But if I tell
the truth about them, they're not inspiring. And even though
they're all arguably true, they're merely luke warm, half
assed in fact. They have no ring of profundity -
I hadn't reached that yet. So I continued looking.
I noticed there isn't a conscious
commitment
or intention on my part to cheapen talk and therefore to
invalidate
who I really am.
At least there's none I can discern, none I can easily come to grips
with. Not noticing any commitment to cheapen talk or any uncoverable
intention to do so, I realized I have a certain thrown-ness to
cheapen talk (else I wouldn't do it!) which accounts for my cheapened
talk, arguably swept along and fanned by peer pressure, the heat of
the moment, and wanting to look / sound good.
This explains some of the where, when, why, and how I cheapen talk -
but it only accounts for a fraction of the total impact on my life of
cheapened talk. Then I shifted the focus of my inquiry away from what I
do which cheapens talk, towards what I may be minimizing,
towards what I may be omitting which cheapens talk, towards something
left out, the re-presencing of which would create the very
antithesis of cheap talk.
That's when an entirely new possibility came into clear and loud focus,
a
breakthrough
which not only transforms my life but also alters the way I speak and
the way I regard speaking as the manifestation of
who I really am
forever. It also leaves me suddenly, undoubtedly, totally clear talk
isn't cheap. The saying "talk is cheap" suddenly becomes
what it really is: an old wives' tale at best, a naïve
unenlightened
point of view
at worst, a pedestrian
business as
usual
way of regarding the possibility of speaking and language.
Until then, until he made his assertion which provoked my inquiry, what
I'd minimized to the point of almost totally omitting them from my
speaking are linguistic acts and the impact of linguistic
acts on my life and on Life itself. It's so blindingly
obvious in retrospect: minimizing to the point of entirely omitting
linguistic acts from my speaking is the mechanism which cheapens talk.
With hindsight it's so
stoopid simple.
And it's not powerful to consider we live in a state of un-cheap
talk like a possibility which we cheapen by minimizing or
omitting linguistic acts. Rather, what's powerful is to consider our
ground of being ie our thrown-ness is cheap talk which we have
the inherent ability to un-cheapen by deploying linguistic
acts ie by acting linguistically.
What are "linguistic acts"? What is it to "act linguistically"?
For example, when I make a promise, when I say "I promise ...",
it's a linguistic act. My promising is my action.
Promising is an action I can only speak. A linguistic act is an
action constituted entirely in speaking.
Other linguistic acts in addition to
I promise ...
include Werner's examples of
I acknowledge ...
I ask ...
I assert ...
I aver ...
I avow ...
I bet ...
I declare ...
I decree ...
I distinguish ...
I honor ...
I infer ...
I opine ... (ie "In my opinion ..." or "It's my opinion
that ..." or "My opinion is ...")
I recognize ...
I say ...
I share ...
I thank ...
I vow ...
and more.
Isolating this selection of linguistic acts teases out ie points to a
way of being ie distinguishes a way of speaking ie spotlights a talk
which isn't cheapened. Talk is cheapened when it's devoid of these
linguistic acts, when this way of speaking is absent, when what's
present instead is the way of speaking variously called small talk,
chit chat, and gossip, in which being witty is the socially approved
pass for avoiding being intimate. It really distinguishes an authentic
way of speaking, a talk which isn't cheap. It really calls for a way of
being in conversation in which I ongoingly presence
who I really am
as my
word.
It's the conversation in which
who you really are
is ongoingly presenced as your
wordlike a possibility which is cheapened ie which is rendered
as cheap talk when it's devoid of linguistic acts, ensuring
who you really are
as your
word
isn't fully presenced. Cheap talk is what's left when the conversation
in which
who you really are
is ongoingly presenced as your
wordlike a possibility becomes a casualty of small talk, of
chit chat, of gossip, of being witty in order to avoid being intimate.
