Shutting up for once

I almost never shut up.

Listen.

I'm a white girl. I'm a gay girl. I'm a girl whose family is half bossy Irish women and Holocaust survivors, half Spanish-rooted hipster vegan feminists. I was raised in the suburbs by a control-freak of a Gemini and a writer, both of whom I adore daily like my life depends on it. This was bound to happen.

Silence is not something that has ever been valued in my house, family, or even within my friendship. I have five siblings: if you don't speak up, you don't speak, period. We are a family used to talking over each other, shouting for someone to bring us toilet paper from the other room, and arguing loudly about which Marvel characters are objectively the best. (It's not Iron Man, William.) If ever there is a moment where one of us is being quiet, it's usually because we're too pissed off at one another to forgo the silent treatment. I'm nearly twenty, and I'm still boss at ignoring my thirteen-year-old sister.

Where'd the idea that writers are the strong and silent type come from, by the way? I'm a chatty extrovert with a penchant for gay YA and femlit. We seem to be the norm, at least as far as Author Twitter goes. (Not that I'm very vocal there.) Most of my friends who write are the same: noisy, political, opinionated. This idea that we sit waifish and solemn in the back of a cafe trying to be the next Virginia Woolf or some shit is tired. You can bet your ass that Virginia Woolf ranted up a storm at the dinner table.

I remember being an angsty teenager, as you do. I think I was partway through some inane fanfiction or visual novel where the main character was mute. During a particular hormone-addled week of seventh-grade high school drama, I decided that I just wasn't going to speak. I think I thought it would make me seem deeper. Whenever teachers asked, I had someone tell them that I had lost my voice. Whenever friends asked, I just shrugged and played it off like a mystery. My parents didn't ask: they happily waited for the Angst Storm to pass, as smart parents do.

It lasted-- are you ready?-- the grand total of about thirteen hours. That's definitely my record. Hell, even when I'm home alone I talk to myself, my chihuahua, and my seven pet rats who definitely don't care for my commentary. I'll talk about literally everything, from the book I'm currently reading to the assignments I'm currently procrastinating. The fact that thirteen-year-old me had even made it that long is still astounding. The silence, even on my part, and the inability to participate in verbal conversation was isolating. Not talking just isn't something that I do.

Silence isn't a thing in a lot of Western cultures, I think. If you ask me or any other lower to middle class white person, they'll be quick to tell you that silence is rude, or isolating, or even that it's 'golden' only in the sense that its purpose is devaluing the people we find annoying. Children, for example, are considered holy and blessed when they decide to close their mouths because we don't want to hear them. Someone you're having lunch with who won't get off their phone, though? The ghost currently haunting your two-bedroom who won't even answer back on the Ouija? Just plain snobby.

In a lot of Asian cultures, silence amongst conversation is considered polite, since it shows that you're actually thinking before you answer. Try that in my family and you've absolutely lost your chance to answer in the first place. I even get frustrated when my girlfriend doesn't answer my questions fast enough, because I think she's ignoring me.

So how does this affect language? How does this affect the way that we communicate, especially as writers? In a post-pseudo-social justice world (I am talking about the children of the children of hippies who are all about veganism but hold on, what was ethical farming again?) it seems like speaking up will always be valued over silence. There's no strength to silence here: it's all about voicing your opinion or posting it online for strangers to read. (Hi!!!) In a lot of ways I agree with this, and think that the notion of 'strong and silent' can actually hinder social progress; after all, aren't we trying to make people who think differently to us listen? The silence of not voting, or not voting seriously, for example, is stupid to me. You have a voice, political or social or otherwise. You should use it.

That said, this is absolutely a white Westernised view of things, and it absolutely comes from my upbringing and the social politics within my family. Silent has its own virtues that my people are loathe to 'get'. The act of being the 'bigger person' and knowing when to shut up can be a great tool for communication, learning, and negotiation, for listening and understanding, and for generally broadening the horizon in understanding other groups, cultures, or individuals. The amount of times that I've been mid-argument with my dad about some 'millennial social' thing he doesn't get and I've prayed for him to just shut up and listen for five seconds is telling. This idea that we always have to communicate all the time is a deeply ingrained one, but it's definitely something we should revisit and contemplate.

Sometimes you really do just have to shut up.