I practice linguistic hedonism - I talk for my own benefit. I have
discovered this through years of saying clever things & then having
to explain myself. I never learn from my experience that people are
nowhere near as clever as I give them credit - perish the thought that I
am too obtuse for them to receive benefit from my innate wisdom.
Sometimes, I take joy from the confused look on someone’s face in my
personal & secret game of one-up-manship. Each quizzical stare
lowers their status in my perception & raises mine in ways they can
never understand. Of course, I’m really trying to prove myself worthy of
their respect, but I have a strange way of achieving it. The game has
been going on for so long that the rules have changed over time & I
can no longer remember what the point of playing actually is, or if
there is a winner or loser, or how either is determined.
When I’m feeling really superior, I use even more complicated terms
to explain what wasn’t understood the first time around, just to show
that there’s no way to dumb down the concepts essential to the
conversation. On rare occasions, I invent words or acronyms or slang
just to add some spice to what is already unpalatable communication.
At some point, I will push my boundaries so far that I will
undoubtedly explode in a cloud of incomprehensible guff, leaving a
complete lack of substance from behind a spectacular effusion of
colourfully flowering verbiage …
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