Lately I’ve been talking to myself a lot more. Actually, I’m not sure I can say that it’s more talking to myself than usual but the subject matter has changed so much that the conversations are more intense and therefore more exhausting and therefore… they just feel like more. And I shouldn’t even call it talking to myself. I’ve been arguing. I’ve been having these fake arguments with people I know outside of my head in the real world involving situations that have never happened. I know it isn’t uncommon to have these fictitious arguments. But I find them to be unsettling because I feel as though they’re bound to actually happen one day soon.
I don’t like who I am when I have these arguments. I say nasty things sometimes. I bring up private things about the person that I’m in a yelling match with as a way to attack them back for all the misdoings they’ve committed towards me. It’s a level of pettiness that I have never actually gone through with in real life. In a real argument I hold my tongue and take a deep breath. I try to practice decency even in the face of indecency. But when I’m alone with myself, in a fictional argument that is so heated and harmful, I become insidious.
I wonder if this is a manifestation of some unsaid things. As I said, I hold my tongue for the sake of decency and filter my words to procure peace. I do not believe, though now skeptical as I write this, that this has been to my detriment. Not everything needs to be said. They say less is more right? There doesn’t always need to be a battle of words. Relationships are give and take…but maybe I’ve given more than I should’ve and have been too scared to take my share.
I know where that fear comes from though. That I can put a finger on. People often ask me to speak my mind. They think because I do not always combat them, or raise my voice, or completely divulge my feelings with unmitigated transparency - that I am hiding something. That I am not being the real me. But the truth is that it’s easy for them to pass this judgment because they often lack ability to self analyze their own behaviors and actions. They do not realize that they have made it a space where transparency gets you killed. They do not realize they’ve forged an environment in which, if transparency were to reign, the fallout would be inevitable and irreparable. People underestimate how large a share really is. A true share, a proper portion befitting of real effort, would be something no capitalist society would allow and neither would they.
Another thought comes to mind: Are these arguments a response to thinking that people will come to show me their worst selves?
Maybe this is a defense mechanism. An act of survival. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.
I like being ready. But to get ready in case a motherfucker steps out of line makes me think I see more of the worst in people than their good. I don’t want to do that. I wouldn’t want someone to think that of me.
Another thought: Perhaps this is a good thing. Maybe doing this blows off the steam so that I don’t destroy everything around me. Not that I would anyway. That’s good though, right? No one likes when their husband brings their work home. It’s not good for the spouse or the children or the pet or plants or the walls.
Another thought: It’s a terrible thing to have these fictitious arguments that have never happened. When you yell into the void with the irrational fear of what-ifs, the void is bound to yell back in the form of those fears manifested.
I think I will practice decency even when I argue with myself.
Maybe that is a form of kindness.