Strong, calloused men of action are common in Texas. Indeed, it’s rather our masculine ideal. There’s something even romantic about it. You know - the strong silent type, as they say. Like a character in a Cormac McCarthy novel. These are not men of words. They can be good men or bad men or any kind of man in between. But if you find a good one, his goodness takes on an almost mystical air because you won’t hear him talking about it.
The idea behind these heroic types seems to be that there is doing and there is talking. The former is for strong ones of action and integrity. The latter is for them that can’t do much and therefore need something to fill the time.
I’m strangely drawn to these strong, silent heroes in books and movies. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe it’s a man thing. But I will never be one of those men because - for better and for worse - I am a man of words.
Words have always come easily to me. I began to speak early. I sometimes didn’t understand what I was saying, but I enjoyed taking words and phrases out for a spin, just to see how they sounded. I was a big talker for a little boy.
I was and still am liable to slip into speech patterns that catch my ear. I pick up on the cadence and personality of accents and dialects. I have an appreciation for the way people talk and how their inflection carries meaning. I love words. I love the sound and feel of them. If I hear a good phrase or an interesting snippet of dialogue, I’m apt to say it out loud to myself while I’m driving. I’ll play with it. Try saying it different ways.
When I stand to speak in front of people, I’m not afraid. I’m enjoying myself. I don’t feel alone because my words are there with me. They’re always there for me. I don’t know where the the words come from. They just come out.
This is the truth: I rarely know what I’m going to write. Sometimes I finish an essay and it seems like I had a good thought and found a nice way to write it. The truth is, some phrase pops into my mind and starts nagging at me. I start writing and usually have no notion of where I’m going. I’m often as surprised as anyone at where it ends up.
So I’m a word man. There’s no denying it.
Listen to me now. This is important. It may not be important for you to hear, but it is a thing that I must say. I need to say it and hear it.
Words are dangerous. Using them is like dancing with the devil. Because when you can make pretty words, there is always a temptation to start thinking that saying something is as good as doing something. And if people give you all the credit up front because of your words, why bother doing anything at all? God knows people will allow it. If you can write or speak well, people will grant you almost anything.
Now here’s a thing I believe is true, but I have no evidence for it. My gut tells me it’s true. I intend to live as though it is true, whether it is or not.
If all you have are your words, you will always come to a bad end. Either you’ll start living a lie and get caught, or the wellspring of words you’ve always counted on will dry up and you’ll panic and start forcing them. Then something false will ring in your tone and people will shy away from you. People are smart about stuff like that.
So here’s a writing tip you won’t hear often. The better you are with words, the better you must be at living. If you are a writer or a talker, you better damn well be living or it’s going to catch up with you. If you love words as much as I do, you’ll have to make yourself get out and experience real life. You better engage people, have children, play games, laugh, whatever. Do it all. And if praying is your thing, you better pray hard. You better pray that your words do not get too far out in front of your life.
If they do, it’s over for you. Your oracle will die. The place where the words come from will close up and leave you choking on some crappy, compound sentence you’ve used ten times before.
Because there is doing and there is talking. If you can only manage one, let it be doing. Because it is the only one of the two that can honorably stand alone.
rlp