X talks too much

He should talk less, X tells me, he talks way too much. The sheer torrent of stupidity that gushes out of his mouth undermines anything of value he might have to say, he says, it’s like a splattergun of verbiage that may or may not hit the target, whatever the target is. He’s well aware of it, so how does he stop it? he asks. If only I’d say something, he says, anything, put him in his place, shut him up. But, no, he doesn’t want to stop, that would be the end of him, he says. He talks to put off the misery he knows is waiting for him to stop talking, and besides, he likes hearing himself talk. It’s his way of proving to himself that he’s still alive, he says, even if he has to disown everything he says. And at least I’ve got things going on in my head, unlike you, he tells me, look how many interesting thoughts I have and how many words I know, at least there are some gold nuggets in the torrent of shit, there must be. At least I’m not too cool for school, he says, I’m living and learning from life, and life is messy as they say, it can’t be helped. At least I’m expressing myself, what’s so bad about that. Still, he says, you’re right, I should talk less, I’m like a teenage girl, I’ve got – what do they call it – logorrhoea. It’s mental masturbation, he says, it gets in the way of true understanding, it distracts him from the Sublime Unknowable that lies behind every careless word he spouts. This isn’t an American sitcom after all, he says, this is serious, he should stop distracting himself with all his blabber, stop tarnishing the Silence that surrounds us all. He should be more uncompromising, he says, more true, like Giacometti or Béla Tarr, or Jandek, become a silent recluse who lives out his stark, obscure vision until the bitter end and doesn’t care what anyone thinks, become the real thing.