I talk to a lot of people. It is a big part of my job. Historically I like to talk so I was shocked when I was driving home yesterday in silence. I am not opposed to dictating a voice memo to myself with notes about a case or a reminder to myself. Upon realizing that I was driving home in absolute silence, I thought that I had finally run out of words. This phenomenon was a fear of mine as a kid because my dad would caution me that I talked so much as a kid that I might run out words one day. There it is. I thought his prophecy had finally come true 53 years after my first word. I had used them all up so my word reservoir was dry leaving me incapable of speaking again. My mind started forcing me to search for another explanation for this welcomed verbal parsimony. Maybe I just had nothing else relevant to say. My brain had switched off the verbal motor in search of contemplation without words that could match my ruminations. I thought maybe at my age the effectiveness of language had reached capacity, so my brain had switched to nonverbal hand motions or guttural noises like grunts or sighs as a way to communicate. Maybe in a world of relativism the usual meanings of words had become so twisted that I could not formulate coherent sentences anymore. My rational was that the world was so screwed up that I did not see the need for language anyway, so I continued driving resigned that my use of words had become ineffectual. I accepted this fate with the hope that I could still text or email. Arriving home I was welcomed with “Hey dad.” I stopped and I could hear my voice say “hello sweetheart how was your day.” Shaking my head, I realized that there is still important reasons for speaking so I guess there was some words left in the reservoir on second thought.
Albert R. Hartley
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