How We Use Our Voice

This week, I just want to start with a warning to the supportive dozen or so of you who are nice enough to read my blog that I promise you is not written by AI, despite the constant temptation that my computer keeps trying to seduce me with. “C’mon Fearless Pencil, you know that you have no idea what you want to write about this week! Just let me write it for you while you sit down, enjoy your tea and order some more things on Amazon!” At least that is what I hear when that little seductress bot appears!

Anyway, the warning is that this post will not be as funny as I usually try to be, since I am tackling subjects much more significant than our lives being taken over by artificial intelligence; this week I would like to write about voice and how we use it. Not the karaoke one you use that sounds much, much better when you and your audience have had a few drinks, and not the really high-pitched one of the local cashier in every town who uses her sweet, cartoon-like squeak to disguise her suppressed grocery-retail rage that makes you want to both laugh and run way at the same time!

I’m talking about defining voice in terms of what you say and how you say it. How you use your words to convey your thoughts, which in turn, convey who you are and what you believe in and stand for as a part of this time in history. Because let’s face it, in today’s world, we all have access to a live audience that now goes beyond your half-listening partner, your fully not-listening kids and your impossible-to-avoid gossipy neighbor Karen.

Consequently, it would stand to reason that as intelligent human beings, we choose to use our digital podiums thoughtfully to proclaim our well-formed, well-spelled and profound thoughts and words to the raptly listening “ether” we know as the human race (mostly?) since they represent not only who you are but carry weight and energy that is absorbed by the  universe and ultimately feeds your AI algorithm, so you’d better decide what kind of bot you want to be in the afterlife!

So, let’s get started. As we all know, January 20th was a big day for people in our country; for some, it was the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., for the majority of others, it was the long-awaited swearing in of our new and former President Trump and the end of anticipation over what Melania was going to wear and for my family and I personally, it marked the anniversary of my father’s passing five years ago.

And it is with respect to these three men that I would like to offer you my perspective on voice and the impact it can have from the standpoint of leadership; of a social movement, of a nation, or of a family. Of people in groups eager to be guided, challenged, inspired and uplifted in order to evolve into their best selves for the greater good. (Take that bots!)

For example, as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties, Dr. King was a gifted and courageous orator who used his eloquent voice to unite and inspire U.S. citizens of all colors to peacefully “fight” for the civil rights of those who still struggled under an oppressive institutional system. A system which made a mockery of the true meaning of the “freedom” that had been bestowed; a physical freedom which had simply evolved into the exclusion of privilege and the enslavement of dignity.

True to his spiritual roots, study of theology and profound sense of justice, his was a voice booming with powerful messages of love and appeals to do the right thing for the common good. His message of equality was based on the principles of freedom given to all those who enjoyed the rights upon which the United States was originally built, and not just those whose DNA strands are seemingly woven in such a way as to make them somehow superior and more deserving of those rights. And although his life was sadly cut short, Dr. King’s speeches continue to serve as a reminder of the impact a voice can have as a means of positive change.   

Moving on to the larger and seemingly more significant event that held the nation captive on January 20th was, of course, the inauguration of President Donald Trump. A man who’s often mocked yet nonetheless powerful voice has and will set the mood and course of our country for at least the next four years and who sets a much different example of how voice can be used as a means to reshape our institutional foundations.

Granted, unlike Dr. King, President Trump’s methods are often shocking, controversial and unconventional, but his intention to convince our country’s citizens that the current system has seemingly become neglectful of an important segment of our society and is no longer supportive of the greater good is basically the same. And based on the fact that he won the election by such a wide margin, it seems to have worked! (Unless, of course, it was rigged; yes, I just went there because the bots are everywhere!)

Now whether you love or do not love President Trump or Melania’s outfits, the idea that change is necessary and inevitable is a premise that every President and political party leader has adopted as a platform since the start of our country. After all, the original immigrants made the treacherous journey here in search of change and escape from the rule of a monarchy which did not support their basic personal freedoms to earn a living and well, not pay taxes, remember?

What happens, however, is that despite the new policies that are created in the spirit of improving life for all our citizens, the reality is that they are often controversial and seem to benefit only one or a few groups at the expense of another.

Consequently, in today’s world of say whatever you want, wherever you want and hit send, the result is that the voices of those who are either forced to pay the cost or feel the need to defend the perceived threat of the cost, or just want to show how right they are (no pun intended), are the voices which grow louder, more critical and sadly, more hateful in order to be heard. And these seem to be the voices that we are hearing most of today, even on our once harmless neighborhood Facebook group sites that used to just be about deer and birds and the traffic circle. I don’t know about you but I miss those days almost as much as I miss the seventies…

Finally, to the voice of my Lebanese father who, along with me and my German mother, emigrated to this country over 56 years ago to build a life based on what they both understood to be the American dream; a life free of the post-war destruction in which they had both grown up and to pursue the opportunity to elevate the lives of their children for generations to come.  

In order to achieve this my father, who was not college-educated but extremely ambitious, used his heavily accented voice and growing English vocabulary to work his way from making and selling falafel from a cart in Manhattan with his brother to becoming a successful corporate sales rep and ultimately running his own travel businesses before he sold them and retired.

Consequently, despite the discrimination that he faced as an Arab American, he understood and combined the commanding power of his physical voice with his respect and love for the English language to ask the right questions, articulate the right responses, to charm and persuade, or to joke and evoke laughter (mostly his own!).

In turn, this strategically developed voice enabled him (with my working mother’s significant help, of course!) to send my brother and I to college and to begin a legacy that continues today with our own children, who have become and are becoming engineers, doctors and nurses. And before his passing away on January 20th, 2020, his own American dream for his family had been realized.

So, what’s the point of all this, you ask? Well, to use my own voice here, I would like to suggest that we use our public forums for what they are intended, like pictures of your cat, dog, grandbaby, sunset, crow on a fence or ______  (insert your favorite here!) and stop spewing all this hate and blame and outrage on each other. Because if you think about it, the use of your voice to do so is only furthering the negativity and intolerance that you are supposedly fighting against! And if your convictions are strong and passionate then, by all means, post them on the appropriate sites with respect and grace and full grammatically correct sentences and spell-check!

Or maybe, since we are all a little stressed right now, let’s make each other smile and laugh with silly things instead, like this anonymous neighbor who posted this hilarious rant on Facebook the other day:

“Irritated, I walked to my mailbox and I see 5 deer walking my way. I opened the box which had a package and as soon as the deer saw it one runs up to me like it was for her. As I walked back to the house she stayed by my side trying to get the package. Finally lost her once I went until I up my stairs. They should not be like this. People should not feed them at all. They are supposed to be wild and people treat them as pets, c’mon folks.”

C’mon folks, maybe the deer thought the lady was stealing their long-awaited order of salt licks from Amazon. Geez! Now that story, my friends, could never have been written by a bot! Take care and have a good weekend. And remember to choose your words wisely; they matter!