Passive voice

A speaker’s voice reflects their collected experiences with writing and speaking, agglomerated into a particular style. I don’t believe in a prior or insulated voice that emerges through and despite interactions with other human beings. Everything about language suggests transaction and co-creation of meaning, and this also applies to voice. Style, hints of structure, more or less tone, a bit of word choice all accumulate from everywhere in the movement towards to present tense of expression. No one else can replicate my voice because it comes from my history of reading, knowing the world, people I’ve spoken to. Its authenticity comes from my difference from that which surrounds me, from the impossibility of replicating my experience in anyone else.

Recently, I through I lost this voice. Then, I realized that instead I gained something. I acquired a new voice that reflects the new experiences and people I now know. So, rather than losing my voice, I developed a second voice. I have a problem because this voice slowly elides me into the background of my experiences here. Sometimes I come back to the old voice, regain it when I realize what has happened through brief flashes of realization. I have two voices- one from here and one from there.

I think it speaks volumes that I can’t stand one of them.