A Personal Letter From The Author

Dear Potential Reader,

This book is going to be such a big disappointment. So, why even go forward? Well, this book examines one of humans most defining attributes. Sometime in our distant past, when or about the time we rose to become bipedal, we burst onto the scene with the creativity with the beginning of our language development.

Language is also the origin of the modern argument. Language is the reason we build fences over fence lines. It serves as the origin of many wars. Words become weapons, while languages become an enemy of a state. Today, we are bounded only by character count. What we could accomplish with dialogue, we destroy with communication.

Humans are responsible for the greatest misuse of our single defining attribute. That one constellation within our higher-order that separates us from all other species. That have ever existed or have evolved. We can’t say, “It’s them, not me.” All of us travelled in this ark together. All of us have ancestors who gifted their future generations the oversight of greater language prosperity.

I should begin by making a big point. This book is not intended to be an academic reference about the origin of language. Yes, I spent years as an academic, but this culminates my life’s work as a husband, dad, and a casual observer of the world around me. It’s not a textbook for anyone pursuing a major in Communications. The one you tell your, BFF, your mom, your comm professor bears a striking resemblance to that pleasantly aging archeology professor Harrison Ford. Just knowing that, you get to continue on with school while one bedpost on your parent’s bed needs less of the housekeepers’ attention, and your dad continues to sign the tuition checks every August.

There are no footnotes. I didn’t cite my many statements of conjecture. Personally, I think that’s I good thing. It limits my liability. This is your guidebook to your potential failure, and, to our evolutionary success. No need to thank me. Thank your genes.

Let’s Just Pretend We Didn’t Say That is the name of this book. I’m pretty sure it’s how meaningful friendships become lifelong and how we endure our professional lives. It’s the glue that keeps my wife, Jenn, tearfully married for almost two decades. ‘Decades’ nicely elongates her periods of happiness. Like when we have those long noodles at that Chinese restaurant for our anniversary every year. The ones that represent longevity and good health. Or something to that effect.

Here’s the point: we all share in embarrassment of the spoken word. Whether it’s our own, or someone else’s. We have world leaders who orate with ease, while others appear to be trapped in their own tar pits. Struggling to get out one sensible word. It’s what we do when we encounter word diarrhea that really matters. Well, that was Freudian. Putting diarrhea in the same idea as a world leader who has visible trouble orating with ease. But no one can say I don’t care. Here’s my concern, you can have partial blockage of a shit hole and still have active diarrhea. It’s a concern following gastrointestinal surgery, but now I’m getting off-topic.

Look, it’s probably clear I struggle with foot and mouth disease. Enough that I need to wash my foot and thoughts down with soap and water regularly. And maybe apply some oral Tinactin cream for those itchy rashes that develop throughout my oral cavity given the frequency my foot is in my mouth. Well, that’s probably enough to put the book down and walk away. If that visual of a world leader’s diarrhea didn’t trump oral athlete’s foot.

All joking aside, one of my daughters was misdiagnosed by a pimple popping MD resident moving through his rotation in the emergency department. I chose to be decorous when I asked him to engage with me his differential diagnosis that moved him to this decision. He was, well, less than sanguine to this line of dialogue and swiftly exited, never to be seen again. There was no pretending what I said, or what he said for that matter. This was a clear example of stupid is as stupid does. A more experienced clinician with an RN after her name was more than willing to go over the algorithm. It went something like this: see your pediatrician in the morning, this is not hoof and mouth disease. It is a foreign body in a joint space. Thank you to all underpaid, overworked, under-appreciated registered nurses.

To any wet behind the ears embryo of a resident, bless you on your road to growth. Anytime you need it, I’ve got some PO Tinactin, and there’s an ocean outside my front door. You’re welcome to add a bolus of seawater to your acidic attitude. Oh, and I can find an intelligent octopus when you’re looking to give up the kingdom. You know, when you finally realize you can’t do everything. But, I know, that too is probably asking for a moonshot.

Many people argue that failure to communicate is inextricably only a male trait. Give man credit for the most fundamental form of communication. For he alone synthesized the notes to para-verbal communication. This unique form of vocalization likely predates man’s first words. Sound must precede his ability to say, “Lion!” or, “Not tonight, Agnes. Yo sap flows for two more fires in the sky.” The male grunt requires the least amount of effort but may convey everything from agreeability to future deniability an event even occurred. It may range from something barely audible to the female ear to loud screams or grunts followed by screams and hoots. Panting and misogynistic behavior are part of the mating behavior of teenage and adolescent males, but they may find the practice fall short in normal bonding situations.

Why do you think after school Lifetime movies are so successful? Other than Meredith Baxter Burney seems to perfectly fit everybody’s suburban mom. I’m speaking of the 8th grade boy with his milieu of Axe body spray and a gallon of Polo cologne trying his best to ask a girl out instead of just trying to communicate with her. The boy isn’t to blame. We are to blame. We tell him to celebrate the catch rather than the friendship. Maybe this does go back to when he was with the men on the plains. When it really was about stalking the ideal prey. We have physical evidence on the walls of caves in France dating back some 600,000 years. Even then we could illustrate our activities. Some of which appear striking similar to noting the process of taking down a large mammal. Understandably, this was, and is, remarkable for us as humans. We are a species that has repeatedly risen and fallen not only because of actions, but of our words. Whether it be illustrated in imagery, in writing, or something we’ve said. We are forever careless in word speak.

Every home is resident for careless thoughts. Even the nonbelievers to “My T. rex ate your Fish family.” For Christians’, their wellspring of perfect thoughts declined when a serpent tempted two people to share in a bite of an apple. Not do a line of coke. Not hotbox a fantastic yield of marijuana. The choice to take a bite of the apple posited much more than whether they could adhere to God’s Word. Two individuals introduced to a novel experience with presumably the same set of communication skills. They were introduced to a situation unfamiliar to either of them. The reward probability we can confidently say no one had previously experienced. Ancient text is thread with science. Why did the patience effect not work on Adam and Eve when there was a high probability of reward?

There is something remarkable about experiencing a message that forces us to simultaneously explore the depth of our emotions and also make the best possible decision for someone else. I’ve often wondered what Adam and Eve must have thought after they were expelled from Eden. Talk about guilt. Maybe this where Christians’ learned to suppress their bad experiences. I grew up Seventh Day Adventist. Not the Waco, Texas SDA, but just to the left of that where you learn to put your feelings in a box and never bring them up again. I think this was a juxtaposition for much of my writings.

Then imagine for a moment your mind moves into under drive. This is how I feel when these experiences occur. It’s also how my kids understand what’s happening to me recently. It’s more than understanding, it’s how to react, when I’m unable to respond. They take my iPhone and open Maps to direct all of us back home. Imagine learning you have a condition that no one your age could ever possibly relate to. A condition that, at the very worst, might be decades in your friend’s future. This was my family’s present. We are living our future, in the present. Life was now piece by piece. In a state of peace, as peacefully as we could.

There are times I can’t control the limits of my decisions. My loved ones are becoming modern-day shepherds trying to eke out a normal existence. My wife and kids still have the strength to leave the house with me, knowing all well it can be exhausting, they still want to do activities with me. Even under their watchful eyes, I can still vanish into the thickets of a crowd. By the time Jenn realized I was in the woods, she’d repeatedly call my phone. Can you hear that? That’s my brain moving into under drive. You might not hear it, but you can see it. I have a glazed look and a lack of awareness of my surroundings.

Unable to hail me, Jenn went a little insane being that modern shepherd trying to find me with a spotty GPS signal in a mall. But in her defense, the Chinese women do that. It has something to do with letting their husbands think they’re in charge. Her crazy is a slow process that...