I like to think I talk a big game. I hope it is such a big game in fact that when people hear me talking they stop and think, “Man, that Flippo. He sure does have it together.” The joke being that I don't have it together. I don't have anything even resembling together. What I do have is a loquacious streak a mile wide and a pugnacious vocabulary poised and ready to be unleashed in a whirlwind of verbosity. My plan here is that this big game I talk will act as a sufficient smokescreen for my obvious ineptitudes and self-confidence issues. Because frankly, for all the big talking I do, I end up doing a whole lot of nothing.
The play Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon has a great line that says something like: “There are two kinds of people in the world, watchers and doers. Watchers...watch and doers do!”
It's funny in context, I promise. Anyway, it is deceptively profound in its simplicity. Or deceptively simple in its profundity. Or profoundly simple in its deceptiveness. Whatever you want to call it, I think it holds true enough to use it as an example. By Neil Simon's formulation, I would label myself a watcher and not a doer.
Under closer examination I would probably label myself as a watcher, talker, and pointer-outer, because I am fairly accomplished at sitting back and picking apart peoples' problems/arguments and formulating some sort of response. Or at least a joke. I have handed out my fair share of good advice which people have then turned around and put to good, practical use. My problem is I don't listen to my own advice.
Which got me thinking. If I consider my own advice to be primarily bullshit, does everyone else who gives advice think the same thing? For the sake of argument, I'm going to say yes. Which made me realize something else. This is bad news considering I am trying to come up with a “Change the World”-worthy idea.
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