How many roles do I play where I am attempting to impress myself and others by using affected speech, being ostentatious, showy or overly ambitious, a pompous ass, artificially inflating my part, overblowing the issue, sounding high and mighty, using flowery speech, being grandiose and elaborating beyond the pale (like I am now).

We all do it. We all do it, badly.

So I practice the opposite: being genuine, telling things honestly.

I moderate my speech and behavior.

My virtue is modest, plain, simple, humble, and unconceited when I am at my best.

I attempt to write the way I talk, using common speech as a model towards writing simple truth and using plain language.

I am sick of hearing myself talk or being depicted in the first person.

I find it easier to use silence to persuade myself to use an economy of words when I speak.

But as a curious student who tries too hard to get it right. I tend to overdo my mistakes before I can become aware of them and take a better approach.

I offer you a chance to question all that I say here by engaging me or your closer friends in a chit-chat or discussion about this topic of being a ‘blowhard’.

I just found myself judging the clerk at the store today.  I said, “You are being pretentious.”  Of course, I was talking to myself.