Belief in a Voice
I believe in voice.
I believe in connection.
I believe in the ability to learn to connect.
Learning to connect to those around you and yourself. Learning to pull and prick at the right heartstrings, gently, in a way that brings yourself and others to tears. Learning to project and put the pieces of the complete puzzle into your own mosaic of connection and voice. A voice that weaves and sprouts strings that envelope those that hear it to form a blanketing feeling of presence and confidence. A voice that absorbs the attention of any being in the realms of its reach, thus pulling individuals to turn their head to listen. A voice that spreads and flows to disperse its every echo in each corner of the room in which it is present.
A voice that lures ears towards it, not for criticism or thoughts of objection, but instead for admiration. A voice that sinks deeper than the ears or head to flood into hearts to leave long lasting thoughts after its disperse. Long lasting thoughts that spark feelings of connection, appreciation, and understanding. A voice which reflects perfection.
A voice that secretly stumbles and sways with an intoxication that only you know of but reflects grace. A voice that portrays a smooth glide on the ice that everyone stares at in awe but has a feeling of stress and error to only you. A voice which triggers the clumping of knots in only your stomach and veins but unravels like ribbons once it leaves the lips. A voice that drains the colour from only the inside but flushes vibrance to the skin and face to those that stand in front to hear. A voice that disregards the sounds of possible whisper and erratic heartbeat to listen to only the uplifters within that motivate it to continue with confidence.
Confidence. The piece that is nurtured and watered to be fed to the voice. The backbone that gives the voice the strength to stand tall. The key nutrient that is used to support the voice’s growth. This is what encourages the voice to begin its journey towards connection.
Building that confidence by seeking approval and mirrored understanding. Using that confidence to silence any sparks of judgment or condemnation. Adopting that confidence to project the voice. The voice that is supposed to touch every listener by not only engaging but impacting. The voice that is supposed to sound calm and composed to portray an image of perfection. The voice that is supposed to deliver all with a powerful volume, pace, and tone. The voice that is supposed to meet all requirements of beauty and intelligence simultaneously through its ability to connect.
The voice that is strong from the edges to stand against any howling winds that choose to blow. The voice that is engaging and maintains the attention from start to finish to influence minds and hearts. The voice that is calm and possesses composure to spread its value of perfection. The voice that is meticulously paced and projected to meet requirements of speaker rule books. The voice that is simply beautiful and knowledgeable of its striking moves intended to carve the path to the heart. The voice that is capable of weaving connections through its flawless presentation and ability.
I believe in a voice that does build connections to the surrounding in ways that pleasantly hypnotize the audience to impact, leaving traces of only grace and excellence…
This piece of writing was inspired by Sara Tirmizi’s “This I Believe: Choices Create Stories” writing that was shared with the class.
Dear Preet,
Your piece reflects the need for you to have a unique voice which can leave a footprint on not only the mind but the soul and the heart. It was beautifully written in how you mentioned that our voice seems to be embedded with flaws which only we recognize. I love how you stated how you searched the room for mirrored expressions, subtly persuading you to continue on, who understand your voice. This built foundation of confidence helps you to sound out all the negativity which surrounds you when you enveil your voice in front of others. “Learning to pull and prick at the right heartstrings, gently, in a way that brings yourself and others to tears”. This sentence showed to me what your voice was like and I can definitely say the way you phrase your sentences pulled at my heartstrings within this piece.
To improve, I can only add some suggestions which you could use to make your writing even more beautiful. After you mentioned how a voice must be both flawless and meticulous, you could have also said how imperfections are inevitable in humans but it is these errors that make us a separate entity when compared to others. If you wanted to have a metaphor to go along with it you could have said how we are all fragments of red who follow the crowd by twirling in unison around the barbers pole but how we should break out of this cycle through our voice. Near the end, you could even talk about how during our lives all we achieve is temporary satisfaction and how nothing is truly ours, except for our voice.
This piece was outstanding and gave me insight on your beliefs. Out of curiosity, why do you block out those who criticize your voice? Why do you think that humans can accomplish perfection when we are mere flesh and bones who are incapable of understanding the philosophy behind existence?
Beautiful post once again.
Sincerely,
Abhay
Hi Abhay,
Thank you for commenting! I like your idea of using the concept of voice and connecting it to be an eternal part of our identity. Hopefully, if I get time I will try to see how I can incorporate your brilliant idea into this piece.
As for your perfection question, I agree with your point that it is quite difficult as humans, the ultimate error machines, to achieve perfection. Connecting to that, I was thinking that despite the million imperfections, the majority of humans aim for this flawlessness which they think they have and want to show to others; however, in the end, they are only trying to portray that perfection to make them seem flawless and unique out of the general crowd. Overall, they are never really achieving but imitating their perception of perfection.
I hope that sort of-ish answers your question.
Once again thank you for commenting and providing such insightful feedback!
~ Preet 🙂
Dearest Preet,
You have such an incredible voice that backs up such a beautiful outlook on life. I think you perfectly defined what a great leader is too, and that is something I have never understood until now. Your words are beautiful in the way that you articulate the gift of speech; such as when you mention “Learning to pull and prick at the right heartstrings, gently, in a way that brings yourself and others to tears.” Such words have an impact on the reader, and leaves a lasting impression that helps them to redefine familiar things. In addition, your voice is incredibly distinct and immediately intrigues your reader, so I encourage you to write with that brilliant voice of yours.
In terms of improvements, all I would add is that creating more shorter paragraphs would make it easier to read for the reader. Personally, I struggle to read bulky to text, which is why I avoid novels such as Gulliver’s Travels. It confuses me a lot, and I end up not understanding what I am reading. Although it wasn’t too bad of an issue here, as your voice kept me invested, it may be something to be wary of in the future.
It has been so nice getting to know you again after years of different classes, and this blog has truly been a blessing in getting to know you again! You have grown so much since the last time we spoke simply in your confidence and your voice. Adding on to this blog, I was wondering what inspired this piece beyond it being an emulation of Sara’s writing? I must know more! Keep writing!!! 😀
Much love,
Tim
Tim! It’s great having you in my class once again this year:)
Thank you for commenting and encouraging me with your words to continue writing. Your positive feedback always makes my day and adds positivity to our usually monotonous student lives.
As for your feedback, I agree that keeping shorter paragraphs will help readers follow along and I will make a note-to-self to change that as soon as possible, in an effective way.
For your question about inspiration, I would say, for sure, my own insecurities when speaking in public and the past years of millions of presentations have developed these feelings of mine regarding a voice. Also, the general witness of phenomenal speakers on TED and within our own leadership community has inspired this description of a public voice.
Thank you once again for the feedback and the time taken to read my piece!
~ Preet:)
Dear Preet,
This piece is so well articulated and really shows you voice as a writer. I love your use of personification of a voice and how it is shown that it is a very important part of your life that you hold onto tightly. Your style has a sense of gentleness to it that I can sense just by reading it and I am filled with a warm feeling- as if I am being hugged by your words. It really fits your theme. I encourage you in the future to write more pieces like this because you are truly inspiring and your work sparks something inside your readers.
Some advice that I would give you is that I feel your piece could be even more effective by shortening the paragraphs so that readers can become even more hooked. Also, take out the one sentence about tone. It does not flow with the rest of the piece and took me out slightly because it did not come back in the piece.
Out of curiosity, what would happen if you were to add parallelism into this piece? I feel as if it may strengthen it even more.
You are such a blessing,
Paxton 🙂
Hey Paxton,
Thank you so much for commenting and giving so much love and praise. I especially really appreciate, and in fact am surprised, after your comment of this piece showing my voice. I know one of my significant goals for Creative Writing this semester is to develop my voice as a writer as it has been what the majority of my English teachers have said is missing; however, your comment and encouragement is something that has definitely motivated me to continue writing and finding that sense-of-self through voice!
For your suggested improvement, I fully agree that it would be better if I shorten or break up the paragraphs because it will make it easier to read and follow. I also agree that the tone line doesn’t quite work and since I was confused about including it myself, your suggestion has shown clarity that I should change it or take it out to make the piece flow more.
As for parallelism, I agree that it would strengthen my writing but since I wrote this piece with really no plan or formal structure, I would and will have to re-plan out the writing to add that technique.
Overall, thank you for your beautiful words of encouragement and I hope to continue hearing your feedback.
~Preet:)
Dear Preet,
First of all, AMAZING! It is clearly evident that each word was chosen carefully, with the intention to leave a powerful impact. Preet you’ve done an excellent job in capturing your voice and articulating your piece in such a way that it flowed from one word to the next, one sentence to the next. Your usage of metaphors worked so well in bringing out the beauty and geniality of the writing. I couldn’t get over the perfection of the sentence, “A voice that sinks deeper than the ears or head to flood into hearts to leave long lasting thoughts after its disperse.” I personally believe that this post can be summarized into that sentence. What you wrote, about believing in a voice, goes far deeper than the ears and sinks into the heart. In a way, this piece is like a comforting blanket, reassuring the importance and strength of your voice and of those who read this.
I could go on and on about the perfection of this piece, however not so much in what you can improve! This piece was crafted with the excellent use of metaphors, but perhaps you could try to include some real life experiences or examples to increase the overall impact it has on the reader. For an example when would someone have a “voice that is supposed to sound calm and composed to portray an image of perfection.” What is the importance of having such a voice? Why would someone need to have this voice? Another suggestion I would have is to section up your writing into smaller paragraphs, I feel it would allow readers to easily visualize and understand the metaphors you have included
Once again, beautifully written. The flow was consistent and smooth, your voice was well evident throughout the piece, and you had me lingering on every fragments of sentences. I urge you to continue to writing with such passion and creativity on this journey of reconciling the marginalized voice! (that’s from your About Me 🙂
Sincerely,
Hefseeba
Hefseeba, my friend!
Thank you so much for commenting on my piece and giving such thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate your comment on this piece showing my voice as that is one of my long-term goals for this class this semester. Also, I am glad that the lines in my writing were able to flow and portray a smooth sense of transition to readers as that was an aspect of this piece that I was worried about.
As for your feedback for improvement, I really like your idea of using personal examples from my life to add a sense of relativity to the writing but I am slightly confused on how to do that. How do you suggest I could add personal experiences without disrupting the flow and style of the piece? I also agree that I should split some of the paragraphs to shorten them and make it easier to read, especially since so many of my commenters have suggested that!
Overall, thank you so much for the feedback and the insightful suggestions you provided. I hope to continue writing to the best of my abilities to “reconcile the marginalized voice” as you mentioned.
With love,
~Preet 🙂