Speaking your mind...

Speaking your mind is a good thing but most people don't understand this because they don't like home truths, or even the plain Truth. My mother once said that the reason people don't like me very much is because I can't keep my mouth shut. I value honesty and if people want to live in a world of lies, yes-men and ''we're all weak, emotionally unstable people; we take pleasure in sycophancy in our little cliques, where we comfort one another with false praise and stab each other in the back;'' then they have problems and I confess myself totally innocent of human behaviour. People stop speaking to me all the time because I upset them in some way; it happens in all areas of my life; at church, at work, home and formerly at school. Lord knows how I have tried to curb this, but it usually takes the form of recourse to absolute solitude where human contact is completely eshewed for fear of offending someone else. At work it took the form of silence, a breakdown in communication with colleagues and my line manager. But then you're brought to book about this as well. Then the dam bursts and you unleash a blast of pent-up anger. People don't like being told that the company is cheap (general manager), that when I come to you for help, you don't actually help (HR manager), that the reason you didn't make it as a supervisor is because you had to do actual work (someone else), or in another sphere of my life, that the reason I never tell you anything is because I think you're prejudiced, ill-informed and I don't value your opinion (she asked why, and I told her), or again the reason I refused to get any of my ''ecclesiastical contacts'' to sign your passport application is because I don't think very highly of people who use the church in this way. Another example would be my being thrust from my old parish church for expressing my views about ecclesiastical polity, liturgical compromise and the various ups and downs of church discipline, depending on the incumbent of the Roman see. Do I think that the pope of Rome is the Antichrist? In all likelihood, yes he is. Do I think that the Church of England is finished? Pretty much.

And blah, blah, blah. People can say whatever they want about me; I know my shortcomings. I live in a state of constant anger, I am very dismissive, I am not as intelligent as I let on sometimes and I am lazy. But I do enjoy art, choral and classical music, ballet and good, catholic literature.