don't slap my goat too
Now, onto the one true voice thing (that other subject we were debating over on our sister blog). Look, I took some flack for that. The boys say I'm overusing the notion of passion. That people don't have one voice--at the core--that is THE voice.
To that end, they cite the very real example of people pretending to be who they are not, manipulating voice to masquerade false personnas. Who ever heard of such crap? Nonesense--such trickery is reserved for only the most renegade marketing hacks...
(two... three... four)
Okay. I get their point. Maybe you have to be a half-Czec, half-Sicilian upstate new yorker whose very core was fused from collected experiences that might scare you if I blogged them here. Maybe that's why you don't get it. WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?
You can do whatever you want with this voice I'm talking about. Dress it up in a foreign tongue, twist it into an outrageous redneck drawl, take on personnas that have polar-opposite views. That's great. That's called playing. That's called improv. It doesn't mean that somewhere, deep in your gut, spleen, or pancreas, YOUR voice isn't waiting--when you come home again after you've had your fun (or been stuck in the corporate grind for a decade or two).
YES YOU DO have A voice, THE voice, YOUR voice. When I say voice, I don't mean having an "opinion." I mean that primal rumbling that takes form and speaks to you inside your own head--don't tell me it's not in your head (please don't tell me that)--talks to you, and you talk back, and when you feel anything intense--from joy to pain, or just plain boredom-- it's there just WAITING to shout out.
So there you have it. The zen of voice. I don't have it figured out yet, but I know that two months ago I met an old friend, one who'd been quiet for a really long time, and I was so happy to see her again.
nightall............ (leave my goat alone.)
