A Voice of Reason, the Reason We Are Here!

Whenever anyone writes or speaks, the concept and actual expression of Voice plays a distinct role in the communication. I know. I taught English language arts for years, and I explained voice within the context of literature and the writing of literature by my students.

Yes, I could deal with voice in the construct of the Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, but out of respect for my audience (a consideration of pathos), I won’t. For the most part, you don’t give a shit. Voice, however, is far more than a topic of academic literary study or evaluation of someone’s argument. It is much more.

Voice is not an invented concept. As with most observations about human behavior and the dynamics of those, it is a term that is simply descriptive of those dynamics that have existed as long as we have. In other words, it exists, no matter what anyone would call it or how a teacher would grade a student’s response to or employment of it.

​I raise this issue because Voice as descriptive of human dynamics gives insight into spiritual realities within individuals. Sensitivity to it can help us in understanding others; it can helps us in understanding ourselves. While the term is applied specifically in literature and writing instruction, spiritually Voice carries the implication of conveying the energy of our mind and soul to the outside world, whether that be one individual or an actual, widespread audience.

If you have read any of my work, you know such ideas carry a lot of weight with me. They do so because I care about the energy I convey and project and the energy others carry. The choice of a person determines Voice: positive, energetic, self-deprecating, loser, warrior, winner. Yes, I know those ideas are indicative of tone and that nuances exist between tone and voice, but I’m now referring to, correctly, the projection of those tones to the world. That is voice.

And I will expand that because I said that the literary concept of voice was simply descriptive of dynamics already in existence. Those dynamics include the desire of every one of us to be heard, to have a Voice, not just someone analyzing our voice. We want to and need to be heard. More than that, we yearn to be heard. As a member of the human species, we want others to know we have something significant to contribute to life. We have a Purpose, and we want it to impact, make a difference for this world. Yes, I know there are some who say they don’t give a shit, but they are living under the deceptive influence of Ego.

Heart, the true essence of each one of us, is the embodied expression of eternal Spirit. We carry a section, a part, of Spirit, one characterized, filtered through, and now, enmeshed with our total person. For instance, I am now the Michael Foster DePung chunk of eternal Spirit, and that life energy will always go on and is identified by me as Discovery. Why do I bring this up here? Because I know, beyond any doubting, my life Purpose is to express the energy of Discovery; that is my Voice.

Since we all at some level and some point in our existence — it could be very early or very late — want to know who that core Self is and why that core Self came here to live in the constraints of mortality, we have Voice. That core Self is in us to be manifested, to be heard, and it is through Voice, the expression of life energy we contain, a unique, powerful Voice.

Ego, however, often constrains that. Sometimes Ego works through responding to the oppressive, repressive, and suppressive ego actions and opinions of others. That’s a choice, but as I’ve said before, it is a choice belying and denying our true essence, for both the perpetrators and the willing victims. Some folks choose to either consciously or subconsciously live under that tyranny. It is a choice that produces a voice expressed in a thousand negative tones: defeat, bitterness, hatred, self-destruction, resignation, boastfulness, false confidence, etc.

When evaluating this, who in the hell would want to live under the influence of Ego as a choice of life filter and processor? Who would want to communicate to the world in such a way? Does it produce anything positive, any solutions, any love? No, it does what Ego always does — isolates in an attempt to preserve some animalistic sense of Self.

Heart, however, desires us to make a positive choice to know Self, to co-create our life Purpose, and to Voice that to the world, a Voice communicating significance and love, a Voice reaching out for connection. That’s what Heart does — seeks connection leading to mutual edification and ultimately, the grand Unity.

So many more corollaries apply to this. My message, my communication, my Voice to anyone who reads this tonight would urge you to listen long and deep to that Voice within and to seek to communicate that energy to this world, to me, to those who need to hear what you have to say.

​And you and I, each of us, has something to say. We have a Voice!