Deliberate self-exposure is rare,
but all forms of public speaking
involve unconscious self-exposure.
Take sermons. I hear one every Sunday.
No matter what a preacher talks about,
if you hear him talk, week in, week out,
then the inner man appears.
You eventually get to know
what he really thinks about himself,
how important he thinks he is, and why,
how clever, how holy, how wise
he thinks he is, and is,
and how happy he is.
For instance, one devoted many sermons
to trying to convince himself (via us)
that his job was very important.
He plainly didn't believe it,
and was very miserable.
The serene certainty and charity of another
shone through the extreme seriousness and simplicity
of what he had to say.
One seemed an exception to the rule.
The sermons were exceedingly polished,
but nothing consistent of the man appeared.
Eventually, I figured it out.
The sermons came ready-made from various worthy books,
and the priest was acting simply as a conduit.
If his object was to reveal nothing,
then he had found the way.
It wasn't even possible to determine whether
he he was too humble to compose his own sermons,
or too lazy.
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