Never to be that small man

A week ago a little self-important man got up in front of a group of us at a birthday party, and by way of a preface to his half-baked speech, began by saying, "I'll tell you right up front, I'm going to go too long," as though he considered his premeditated blatant disregard for his audience to be some kind of badge of honour. That was when I said to God, if he wanted me to speak in front of people it would have to be at their request & not on my own initiative. Precisely because I crave speaking I fear to make it my responsibility to put myself on the soapbox, so great is my fear of approximating the behavior of that self-important man, who went on in his little way to tell us between the lines not how much he appreciated the man whose birthday it was, but how authoritative and experienced he was in all things wise and wonderful. It was quite enough to put me off preaching unless by some great privilege I could be sure it wasn't my own ego that had brought it about.

I don't want to speak before our group only for the sake of speaking -- I have a few things I just urgently want to explain. I do ache to get them out; even if someone would only somehow happen to ask me about them in casual conversation, that might be enough for me to get it out of my system. Until then, I am a man with an open secret that the rules of the game forbid me from telling.

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