Column: Decree of Silent Companionship

Dear Friends and Family,

 In the course of my experience as a woman identifiable as white, middle-class and educated in this country known as America, in this economy known as capitalism, I have made a decision that affects you all and for which I hope you will not hold me accountable in any unjust way.

 No longer will I, Mary Patricia Adkins, express myself through the medium of verbal speech, excluding the sub-categories of liturgy, recitation and conversations concerning matters of logistical importance, which are to be conducted in a timely and efficient manner, ending promptly when the essential information has been relayed.

 The nature of this decision is not bitter, but rather practical. We, despite care for and genuine interest in understanding one another, have not progressed sufficiently in our tiring effort to refine the medium to which we devote hours each day as our primary means of expression--and the more frequent my participation in group attempts to express our separate realities through this means, the more frustrated I become with its inadequacy.

 The vocabulary, equipment and context of talking are unable to convey what the core of my inner being deems appropriate material to share with other human beings, which at present is only this: it is in our mutual best interest for silent companionship to become the default operation of our interactions until a later date.

 At that time, the decree may be amended to allow for joke-telling, and perhaps even rare moments of insight that beg to be translated into public space so as not to be lost in the abyss of one's mind. However, as long as the majority of speech is uttered with intent to acquire or preserve power over any life-being including participants in the conversation, no exceptions will be made.

 Only when we are all on the same plane of having recognized that our sole two choices on earth are intention and medium, that raw experience constitutes divine content with which we are obliged by the clause of the Good Life to express stylistically and that none can teach another what he or she does not already know, may we resume normal verbal discourse.

 In the meantime, I look forward to physical interaction with those of individuals who are willing and capable of it without its audio companion. To those of you for whom this criterion poses too great a challenge, I offer to be patient with you should you choose to meet the task clumsily, and I will understand if you instead prefer that our relationship be terminated indefinitely.