You should know by now that you can never shut me up.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

I've been hearing a lot of grief lately from people how I flood everyone's Multiply inbox, and how long my posts can get. Well, maybe not for the flooding thing, depending on your group of contacts, but I sure get a lot of rants and occassional raves (thank you dears) about it.

One thing you should know about me is that I might zipper my mouth and lock it and throw away the key or go on blog hiatus forever, but I can never, EVER shut up.

Here are my sentiments. It can take pretty long.

Aeons ago, back in third year, I said in a post about the world and their almost stereotyped complaints against talkative people. My stand was it's because they have a lot to say, therefore, they have a lot on their minds. Many people agreed.

I roll over on myself.

Many people just talk crap just as well as many people talk sense. It takes all kinds, I guess.

But here is my point now guys: LISTEN.

It doesn't matter if you'd heard the story 48 times over. It doesn't matter if you don't really care. When someone else talks, YOU don't matter. Every person is worth listening to, and no one has the right to shut anyone up, except God.

My parents raised me to never dominate a conversation. Always direct attention away from myself, push it towards the person you talk to, even if the person takes advantage and prattles on like forever about himself. Very good advice. I learn to become selfless in the small things they teach me.

I was raised this way: SPEAK THE TRUTH. SPEAK HUMBLY. SPEAK NICE AND EASY.

I have not mastered at all the third, especially in my native language. I always have the tendency to speak too loud, or too raw, as follows Filipino customary tongue. I do better in English, and probably, if I knew what I was saying, Chinese as well. But I have no finesse in Tagalog, and the dialects, even, except for Bicol, which I am now horrible in because I mix it up with Bisaya.

Tagalog and Bisaya are most comfortable said rough and hard. Batangueno is sweeter and softer, but the twang may turn some people off. I love speaking in all, yep, even Bisaya, but only around people who speak it, kahit palpak minsan ang grammar ko. Tagalog is my most comfortable and usual, and Batangueno is for when I want to speak fluent and free Tagalog especially when emotions which would usually by negative run high, because although it is still Tagalog, it has deeper and wider terms that are not commonly found in Filipino, but among the outskirts of the countryside. And when I have fun with my mom with it.

English is a sort of forte. Its wide range suits me very well, like I would have been born for it if not for Tagalog. I am not very good with Bicol anymore, but I can still understand it well. And then there is the inevitable (at least, on my mom's side of the family) G-words, which they used to use for conversations they didn't want us children to hear, but is now useless since we've figured out how it works.

See? My thoughts keep going on and on. Which is why I tell you I can never shut up, no, never, really.

And even when I seem to shut up, you have no idea, that's when the flood of thoughts too innumerable and complex and tangled up and follow the other, train after train.