Hmph. Explains everything. I'm shy, stammer in public, seldom speak to people who I know personally or professionally, although I'm a good listener and I laugh easily.
Talking might be a genetic deficit. I have no recollection of my father or mother speaking. Uncle Fred was silent. The only photograph of my grandfather showed him deep in thought, standing with a more animated (i.e., normal) person. My daughter is silent, too, unless she sings to herself in a remarkably singular style that's uniquely her own, perfect pitch without lyrics, a truly lovely creative warble. She's physically elegant, a natural dancer like I am.
From time to time I speak aloud to myself, addressing a big crowd in full voice, walking by myself, as if there's a deep unfulfilled yearning to speak because I have so much to say. No doubt that's why I write, tongue tied in public. It also explains why directing movies was nearly impossible. My orders on the set were terse and impersonal. I was hopelessly silent and stupid when I was interviewed for All Things Considered.
My fictional male characters don't say much, either, but they have rich internal monologues full of thought, capable of spontaneous deception or comic quips. I often surprise folks with wry remarks and penetrating observations. It's hell to be smart and to see the deep context, embarrassing to name it, no talent for diplomacy.
It disqualified me from normal employment, forces me to live alone.
What's most bizarre of all is that I'm affectionate, generous, glad to be alive and happy to witness every manner of human and animal life on earth. I talk to cows, dogs, birds, bunnies, total strangers, children, cops, lawyers, doctors, hillbillies, and shopkeepers, provided that I don't have to discuss serious ideas, unable to say what I really think.
It grieves me to edit what I say in print.
In a crisis 20 years ago, commemorated in Walking To Ayrshire, it was imperative to find an explanation for my silence and isolation, so I looked on the web and saw myself described as a victim of Asperger's Syndrome. On my first visit to a clinical psychologist, I told him, and he categorically dismissed it as rubbish. There was nothing wrong with my mind or personality. Five years later, I received an unsolicited email from him, amazed that "my star was shining so brightly" as author of The Freeman's Constitution. No other man on earth recognized it as an intellectual achievement, to advance a new theory of justice.
So, I'm silent, isolated, impoverished, incapable of small talk, shunned by the modern world because what I think and create is unwanted.
https://youtu.be/HRGX2FiHOS0
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