BitterSweetLife

Talk That Counts

I’ve often wondered what makes verbal communication gripping. How does a serious message, voiced in conversation, become Wow? How does one put truth in such a light that it appears as itself, irresistibly fine?

To go beyond—or rather beneath—mere recital, that’s the point. To subjugate words and truth so that you don’t merely repeat them, but have first claimed them, poured them inside so that they work themselves out with force.

As with a poem. You can read it off the page and lull your audience to sleep, or you can get it by heart and shock them into sight with your passion.

So many communications are like how-to manuals. No doubt they are helpful, probably even true, if one could ever make it past the table of contents. Sadly, they're “useful” and “forgettable” in the same breath—that’s the problem with verbal prescriptivism.

The key would be to first take and digest the contents yourself. Then you wouldn’t be pointing to topic headings like a tour guide, but recounting the gist of things, like a veteran. Spirited testimonials, not helpful references, are the idea.

In the long run, second-hand recitals tend to be forgotten. “Freshness”—which in the case of expressed truth is simply a nearer thrust at reality—comes only through prior ownership, through previous experience, love and taste.

In the case of conveyed truth, “Used” is the essential condition.