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It's well known that between the ages of approximately 1 and five, the offspring of homo sapiens slowly and at times lopsidedly do something called learn to speak. They acquire some key words, lunch, cat, mummy, fart, assemble some basic grammar and are by the time they're the size of a chair well on the way to one of the key markers of human competence. Except for one thing. Shortly after they learn to speak, children also learn, as it were, not to speak. At first, they aren't very good at not speaking, which is why for a precious time, they're very funny indeed, as well as occasionally
rather excruciating. They use their newfound linguistic skill to come out with utterances like, "Grammy smells under her legs. Jane looks a bit like a giraffe, and can you put a poo back in your bottom once it's come out?" Then sure enough, to the mixed relief of the adults around, children learn not to speak. They become careful custodians of their more charged insights. Outgo the large questions, rude observations, and naked confessions. By 8, they know how to say, "I'm very well, thank you. How are you?" By 11, they might tell you, "I don't mind that my parents are getting divorced. I get to go to Disneyland." And by 17, pretty much all of the wonder and pain of being alive has ceased to
make it out of their lips. Something evidently goes astray. So much so that we might posit that becoming a true adult might rely on going in the opposite direction on a process of remembering how to speak once again in emotional rather than grammatical terms. We exceed to genuine maturity when we can dare to once again take people into the phenomenal mystery and agony of being ourselves with all the fear, joy, questions, and doubts implied. It can take a while to realize just how much we've grown used to not saying. Silence on the key areas tends to become our second nature. It isn't just that we're deceiving others. We've lost the thread even within ourselves, emitting so much as to notice all the anger, terror, or
joy coursing through us at subterranean levels. Imagine, therefore, a somewhat bold experiment, in its way as challenging and rewarding as taking up a new sport or mastering a new recipe. Imagine if we attempted to undo three or five decades of experience to travel back to the raw state we knew in our original home. We would of course have to take some precautions, but it's part of the incoherence of adult social life to picture ourselves unable to do so. We don't in reality face such a stark choice between honesty and ostracism. There are well-worn ways of being at once true and kind, honest and unfightening. We can wrap our moments of
cander in levity and good sense. Imagine if we said, for example, "Forgive me, but as much as I want to be kind here, there's something I might be a bit furious about, which is obviously crazy, but bear with me." Or, "It's not that I don't like you. I'm scared that you're going to reject me, which probably explains why I've been behaving like a bit of a weirdo these past days." Or, "I'm not just gazing out of the window. I'm actually worrying that you're going to find me bad in bed later." Or, "I'm not really grumpy. I'm actually going out of my mind with anxiety." We've picked up the message that such truths are extremely dangerous to share. No one
could get a view of our actual levels of pain, worry, desire, and still be on our side. But that's to forget a bedrock fact that we're all beneath a layer of social subtifuge, longing for reassurance that there are echoes of our intimate, bewildering experiences in the minds of others. We're all mad, sick with worry, entirely lost, and desperately anxious about our appearance, achievements, and likability. We become more charming when we speak up because so much of what makes us unpleasant is related in the end to our unwitting deceitfulness. Not only don't we want to have lunch, we see no option but to pretend that we would like to. Not only do we leave relationships, we can't bear to own up
to our wish to do so, and therefore come across as sentimental and confusing. How much better if we had the confidence that we, like small children, except more so because we have greater self-control intact, are at our most beguiling when we can stick as close as possible to how things actually are. When we can say, "This is lovely, but I don't want to take it any further. I'm so sorry." Or, "I'm really furious. There's a part of me that wants to scream and sob on the floor." Or, "I make no assumptions at all, but I really do find you attractive. I hope it's okay to tell you." Or, "I'm so worried that I've failed in your eyes. I do
apologize. We'll learn to properly live when we stop being so morbidly embarrassed of our reality. No one asked us to be alive. No one asked us to suffer as we do. We're not responsible for how peculiar it is to be ourselves. What is in our power is to be unfightened by the contents of our minds and to use our artfulness and intelligence to share as much of it as possible with those we come across. We will in the process reassure them of their normality, deepen our friendships, and feel less peculiar about our natures. We'll get a little closer to experiencing life as it actually is.
