The Third Conversational Taboo
Religion…
Politics…
My So-Called Future.
*
What does any person I talk to know about me, anyway? What does anyone know? I’m like this huge, building-sized wall mural, which people peer at through a keyhole. That’s about all you can convey of yourself in one dinner date, a keyhole’s worth. But then everyone likes to take that tiny little keyhole’s worth, and extrapolate all sorts of things. They think they know the entire mural, every detail, right out to the corners — even what type of building you’re painted on — just from that keyhole glimpse. And then, despite your intimate knowledge of your own mural, right down to which parts have recently been embellished, you take these flash-keyhole-judgments so seriously, you fool yourself into thinking that the person knows something about you that you don’t, even though they might not know shit. And then the other person gets to go home, promptly forgetting the fraction of truth that they may or may not have seen, and meanwhile you’re on a train somewhere in the middle of Tokyo, in tears over how much of your original design to preserve, and how much to whitewash and start all over from scratch.
*
This aching heart ain’t something I done
This aching heart’s been handed down
But I’m done with it now
I’m done with it now
I’m done with it now
– Matthew Good, The Boy Come Home
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You’re currently reading “The Third Conversational Taboo,” an entry on For the Love of Murasaki
- Published:
- September 17, 2007 / 9:46 pm
- Category:
- the usual suspects
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