When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 1

Articles In This Section:

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 1

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 2

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 3

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 4

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 5

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 6

· When and How to Talk of One's Self - part 7

THE person who talks unwisely about others may commit the greater sin, but the one who talks unwisely about himself makes the greater fool of himself. The gift of tongue holds no greater temptation than that of slyly glorifying one's self, and no surer way of achieving contempt. Few are able to evade this temptation altogether; for many it is the besetting fault of their talk.

The fact is, as was pointed out earlier, that people talk to give themselves satisfaction. God, however, arranged things so that they cannot give themselves this satisfaction unless in talking they seek first the pleasure of their hearers. But the natural man has the irrepressible urge in talking to gratify himself above everybody and everything else. That is why some have cynically called all conversation mankind's peacock-tail of self-glorification. Mortimer J. Adler says, "Many people think a conversation is an occasion for personal aggrandizement."

All this means that a wise person will continually watch and pray against letting this urge to self-glorification slip into his talking. The passion to find sly opportunities of patting one's self on the back is ever lying in wait for its chance. Voltaire rightly says, "Self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: — it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it." That is the essential requirement regarding ourselves in conversation, we must conceal our self-love.

All culture, all salvation even, proceeds from the control, the regulation, or the sublimation of our natural urges. Self is to everyone the supremely interesting topic of conversation. A person cannot get away from it, and he may not give in to it: he must sublimate it. He must somehow make what interests the "self" of others become his own self-interest. Just as a person truly in love honestly rather talks to the loved one about her than about himself, so the truly Christian and cultured conversationalist must ever strive to make others' interests his own, and their glory, his glory.

Even without full Christian perfection, a good conversationalist can learn to "conceal his self-love" enough to do no harm. His greatest help will be in knowing when and how talking of self is legitimate and desirable, and when it is not. Bacon says categorically, "Speech of man's self ought to be seldom, and well chosen." That is exactly true. One never ought to indulge in it before thinking twice as to whether the time is apt. But Bacon's considered advice does encouragingly imply that one may at times do so, and possibly should.

There are three types of self-talk which are proper. But they are proper only at restricted times and places. In the order of restriction, the first is one's innermost hopes and fears; the second is one's philosophy of life — one's political and religious views; the third is personalia, that is, impersonal chitchat about one's habits, routine, and experiences, comments on indifferent matters about ourselves.