Natalie Whatley

So we’re having an abnormally cool winter here in these parts.  While I don’t enjoy feeling chilled as much as I have lately, it’s not the cool temps I find most bothersome, but rather the gray dreary skies that often accompany them. The blah horizon seems to wash over everything, and I’m finding I don’t do well in a colorless existence.

Shades of gray make up many of the nuances that are part and parcel of human existence. Statistically, I’m about halfway through said existence and that fact has caused me to decide that life’s too short to be spent in gray-area neutrality – even if only confined to conversation. And that got me thinking about the saying “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

It sounds easy enough to execute, but when we consider that there are three possible meanings for every word it’s easy to see why misunderstandings and conflicts arise. A speaker knows what he means, the listener thinks he knows what the speaker means, and then there’s the actual dictionary definition. Just for grins, I think we can also include male/female communication dynamics. We should all take a bow – it’s amazing that anything gets accomplished.

While I don’t fully subscribe to Dr. Brad Blanton’s Radical Honesty movement – because I’m certain that following the tenets that call for all speech to be unfiltered would have many of us going around beyond angry, if not feeling completely dejected – it does seem things might run a little more smoothly if we could all stop the verbal dance that leads to all parties feeling as if they were trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

I don’t know, maybe I’m feeling this way because on top of the gray skies, it’s election time. I’m exhausted from trying to decipher hidden meanings and innuendo – just give it to me straight and without sugar coating. From there, I can form a rational opinion. But I digress.

Getting back to gray and throwing in black and white because they can be stubbornly problematic, I’d like to think I can say what I mean and mean what I say in a calming shade of blue – if I were so inclined. I mention inclination because some conditions call for fiery reds (I’m a little too practiced in those), or the bane of many writers, some drippy purple prose. I’ll try to stay away from nauseatingly-sweet pink.  But what if I’m feeling a little envious? Could I not use green to get my point across?

Maybe I should strive for being silver tongued – speaking in lustrous grays that deflect my inability to get off the fence. Nah . . . that wouldn’t be any fun. Like comedienne Lily Tomlin once said, “If you can’t be direct, why be?”  I can’t “be” without any decided qualities or characteristics, and I refuse to be black and white. Fiery reds and calming blues . . . that’s what I say, and I mean it.

© 2010 Natalie Whatley

Tags: say what you mean, verbal gray area