SONG OF THE DAY: You Talk Too Much

A valuable lesson I learned in adulthood was the act of shutting the fuck up. It’s amazing how much easier it is to hear other people when you shut the fuck up sometimes. And the first step to understanding what someone else is trying to say is to hear them. All of this was very shocking to me, and probably seems counterintuitive to you, my gentle random reader. We’re trained with rugged individualism where our opinions are important and the world must hear them, and in fact, the entire notion of free speech has mutated in many minds to mean everyone else should shut up and listen to me. And I’ll admit, there’s plenty of aspects to my life where I wish I had a more-heard voice… there’s a complicated intersection of metaphysical cultural vuvuzelas that allow different voices to be heard over others. At times, as a person from a poor background, my voice is weak. At other time, being externally identified as a white male, my voice is focused in upon. And because there’s so much competition for voice, or voices drowned out by more powerful voices, a lot of yelling happens.

So I suggest you join me in shutting the fuck up. A lot of other people won’t shut the fuck up, but magically once they realize you’re not yelling back any more, some of them feel stupid for still yelling and shut the fuck up too. Others are just looking for conflicts in yelling at people anyways so move quickly along after you shut the fuck up. And once enough people shut the fuck up, it is amazing how much more you hear the birds.

Our political system which rules this poison culture, unfortunately, is predicated upon yelling at each other, and there are those who will become indignant and say, “Raven, it is irresponsible to say stop yelling and shut the fuck up, because it’s our democratic duty to not shut the fuck up and always be yelling, but only in one of two appropriate type of yells, because other yelling outside of those two specific types of yells just confuses the yelling, and then nobody can hear anything.” And I look at them and wonder what the fuck is wrong with them. But I don’t say anything. I just stay shut the fuck up, and let them yell. And anxiously await hearing the birds instead of the people. It’ll be here sooner than you realize.