Amedeo Modigliani: Madam Pompadour (1915)

" … frantic iAlogue might appear."

Talk through your hat: (idiom UK informal)

To talk about something without understanding what you are talking about:
"Nothing of what he said made sense - he was talking through his hat."
—Cambridge Dictionary

More often than I comfortably admit, I speak before I know. Before I know enough about the context. Before I know sufficient to knowingly comment. Before I know whether my target is even listening. I only sometimes embarrass myself after I should have embarrassed myself speaking. This occurred when I spoke too soon or had no charter to say anything. I often just wanted to stay in the conversation, to contribute my share even when—and maybe especially when—I felt I might not have anything intelligent to contribute. It's then when I tend to say something stupid and wear it as if I were wearing some outlandishly inappropriate hat that can't help but dominate my presence. I almost exclusively humiliate myself.

Strictly speaking, TalkingThruMyHat may not belong classified under iAlogue, internal dialogue. I include it here because it does belong to that subclass of speech where others might be present without the speaker taking proper account of their presence. The speaker speaks as if there could be no consequences, as if they alone might judge their contribution. They often become needier than their conversation and feel compelled to contribute even though their wallet's just as empty as their pocket. Any act driven by such compulsion will likely produce something near the opposite of any speaker's intention. If only I could rationally supervise myself when I'm feeling so compulsed. That I compel myself serves as no excuse and might well make matters worse.

Any odd conversation might include this sort of non sequitur, some comment or phrase for which the earlier exchange offered no invitation. These can stumble the conversation's cadence, creating an arrhythmia in the interaction. These interruptions tend to fall so subtly that nobody might even initially notice, but the interchange has already fallen off course. The one nudging the vessel off its compass might be the first to see, but since they've initiated the foul, it seems to them as if mentioning or apologizing might make the bad situation worse. Cursed, then, with a sideways contribution, the conversation, once naively hopeful, descends into something else again. I know no reliable way to save face in these situations, and even shameless admission might fail to satisfy even a generous intention. When farting in church, it might be best to privately blame the resulting stench on the holy ghost while penitently sitting through to the end of the service praying quietly for forgiveness and that nobody around you will notice.

We think ourselves rational animals. We believe ourselves eminently reasonable. We might instead be in continual competition, turning almost everything into some game we're trying to win. It's tough to honestly engage with anyone I fear, and who better to fear than my competitor? We're friends, yet I might still keep score between us, trying to gain points and more or less continually accounting for them. The play-by-play, of course, might well be constant and prove so distracting that I cannot quite hear the conversation to which I could have sworn I was contributing. It's then that I tend to begin TalkingThruMyHat. It's only later that I realize that I've done that. Between contribution and realization, a different universe emerges where frantic iAlogue might easily appear.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz