Both John and Jen annoyed me. I felt impatient with each. But then I’m an impatient person. I think there may be a gene for patience/impatience. But since the trait doesn’t lead to social dysfunction, there’s no scientific grant money to find it, the way there are funds to find the “impulse gene.” I think it’s possible that the (im)patience gene influences our compatibility with others. I think we live at different rates, and we find our friends among our own velocity. Philosophers have spent too much thought on space and not enough on issues of time, duration, velocity. But that’s another monograph.

John and Jen annoyed me and intrigued me. Why did each persist with an insignificant issue, in the face of interlocutor disinterest?

First I tried to answer my own question. I thought John might be doing the Alzheimer’s-dance – he’s 66 and probably that much more concerned about any inability to remember little things. I’ve noticed that concern can produce quite a bit of tenacity about conversational recollection. But Jen couldn’t remember something she never knew – where Paul’s opera seats are – so I couldn’t make dementia issues explain both their behaviors. Could it be simple passive-aggressive stubbornness in response to my attempt to shut them up? Were they additional examples of what I often notice: people who appear to be conversing but who, for reasons of ADD or OCD or some spectral condition, are really just thinking out loud in my presence?

Then I tried to get an answer from another. I described the conversations to my business colleague. “So what do you think?” I asked Robin. “Why did they persist?”

She looked at me across her cluttered desk and announced, “They need to be right.”

***

Maybe. Probably all of the above. John and Jen each like to be authoritative. They’re fixers. They’re rationalists. They try to remember what eludes them. They probably resent my forcefulness.

But Robin’s words produced a resonance in me that I cannot ignore. I hear myself having an opinion on all subjects, and offering it without reservation or consideration. I see myself as a purveyor of unsolicited advice. I recognize myself as a dispenser of unwanted wisdom.

I now want to learn to stop asserting my knowledge or proclaiming my opinion. If I already know it I don’t need to say it.

I want to be quiet. Let some questions lie. Let some others answer. Unless asked. Until certain.

I will not attempt to stop opining within. I’d fail if I tried. I’ll be the Walter Mitty of righteous indignation. Around my soul as I live my days will float a fantastic field of strong, funny, indulgent, silent judgment.

I will learn to be less right.