371 days and let's talk about a specific anniversary
It's been a little over a year since I started this blog and almost a month and a half since my last entry.
I haven't forgotten.
I merely haven't had much to say.
And I learned a long time ago that talking without saying anything cuts two ways.
In the first place, it adds to the noise. There's already an abundance of voices clamoring for attention. The last thing I need is to add my own to the cacophony when I'm producing little more than noise.
In the second place, I've found that people who speak least are often those most listened to. If my words—when I care to share them—always contain value, then people are generally more inclined to listen when I open my mouth. Alternatively, if I wasted my breath on the verbal equivalent of lorem ipsum, people would learn that lending me their ears would be a gamble on wasted time and attention.
But all that aside...
There is something I wanted to say.
I don't like celebrating birthdays, mine or anyone else's.
I've written previously about the ambiguity of anniversaries. In addition to that, it should come as little surprise that I abhor being the center of attention.
Yes, some kids love it when they're seated in a restaurant and the staff comes out with a cheap dessert and a cheaper candle sticking out the top, gathering around your table and (if you're very lucky) singing a barely off-key song that I'm certain most parents are tired of hearing.
I'd rather pay for the dessert without the candle than get it free with the accompanying public humiliation.
And for that reason, I never tell the people I work with when my birthday is.
Yes, the folks in HR know, because it's on my ID and all my paperwork, but I've yet to have an instance where they broke confidentiality and leaked the month and day I was born. (I know it happens to some people; I've heard stories.)
I've also heard stories about people explicitly and deliberately not consenting to celebrations—at work or otherwise—due to knowing their own difficulties handling surprise or center-of-attention-ness, only to find themselves suffering the consequences (like losing their job) because several people took it upon themselves to ignore consent and do it anyway.
At a previous job, I worked with a gent who was such an attention whore that he celebrated his birthday at work for the course of an entire month.
I've long since stopped asking questions about why people do things, because I never get satisfactory answers, even on the rare occasions where I get answers at all.
So don't bother asking why I'm thinking about this right now.
Is it a post idea I've had waiting in the wings for a while, and I was aiming for the anniversary of the blog and missed? Is my birthday around this time? Are we halfway around the year from my birthday, and this is just a bluff? Or is it a double bluff and my birthday is in a few days?
The world may never know.
(Unless one of you few folks who does know decides to be an ass and spoils the answer, but be warned: it's a lot easier earning my trust the first time than it is the second time.)
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