flanneL

I've been having a look at Dear Thief, a novel by Samantha Harvey, via the free sample that Amazon kindly sent to my Kindle.  At one point (no spoiler) the narrator said that she "flannelled" her grandmother's face, which sent me to the OED.  And there I learned that "flannel" was, indeed, a verb. Though not the definition fitting the context the passage from the novel demanded, this is the definition that caught my eye:  

bland fluent talk indulged in to avoid addressing a difficult subject or situation directly 

(tertiary definition, identified as British informal)

Is it just my cynical and misanthropic nature, or does that pretty much define 95% (I may be lowballing it) of all conversations?  Which makes me think of what Temple Grandin said about small talk.  Unfortunately I can't find the quote to get it exactly right, but as I recall she used the words "tedious" and "boring" and remarked that she couldn't understand why it was such a popular activity.   

It seems impossible to deny that most of what we say is unnecessary (to put it gently).  We're just passing the time.  Blowing wind out of our face holes.  Or maybe not.  Maybe we're flanneling.  Maybe when we talk about the thing we saw or saw on tv or heard or read or whatever what we're really doing is saying, "Life is meaningful, isn't it?"  Or maybe it's more basic than that. Maybe it's just, "I matter, don't I?"  Because if I'm talking and you're listening, then I matter, don't I?  (And if you respond to what I say, then I must REALLY matter." )  What is said is, for the most part, irrelevant.  It's the act of speaking and being heard that matters.  Which may be why William James said that "no more fiendish punishment could be devised,  were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.”  (Which is what puts the Invisible into Ralph Ellison's Man.)  When I went to Germany in 1982 I spent a week on my own, and my only verbal interactions with people were pragmatic, brief, and in German.  When I finally met up with a fellow from U of L (who years later ended up as a teacher at du Pont Manual--as did I, by a very weird set of actions and reactions) I could not stop talking to him.  Even as I was talking to him I was thinking, "Jesus Christ, I am really talking a lot."  If diarrhea could go on for hours, I would call it verbal diarrhea.  (Note:  I have to interject that I am glad that diarrhea can't go on for hours, though.)  I talk, therefore I am.

And maybe the same thing is true of our acts. As in, what we do is primarily a way to keep ourselves from admitting the futility of acting, because to admit that would be to succumb to inaction.  And ain't it funny how all of this reflects back to Buddhism.  The highly evolved Buddhist keeps his mouth shut and sits around a lot, right? Even eating is kept to a minimum.  Of course, people who do that in America are either confined to mental hospitals or soon will be.  We are a land of talkers and actors.  

Aka flannelers? 

Or maybe it's the only way to keep from killing yourself.  If it really is all bullshit, then you've got to do something to distract yourself, right?  Because if you don't do something, you're just going to fall off the edge.  Or jump.  So the trick is to do something that amuses you.  Or that makes you feel worthwhile.  Sex, love, comic books, heroin, Bob Dylan, chimpanzees, granola.  Maybe it doesn't matter at all.