>>by Nick Mah>>

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.  Translation: It’s not what you are, it’s who you are.  Or at least, the way people perceive you.  You have power over that.  You have your voice.

Voice meaning the sound of the words that come out of your mouth, voice meaning the way your words read on paper.  Voice meaning the way you present yourself, voice meaning the way you walk down the street. 

This is your tool. 

You must decide how to use it.

It’s easy today to have a voice.  One need only watch the news to learn the things that are important to talk about, or skim Cosmo or Maxim to find out what to wear.  The Internet can clue you off to just about anything, and if the mass media’s not your game, there’s always the opinion of your most esteemed peers.  If necessary, you can even find out what you should believe in and what is right and what is wrong.

Then, with your tape-recorded voice and Xeroxed image you’ll be set to face the world; and fortunately for you, the world will be counting on you to arrive like that.  Plenty of people and institutions are more than ready to embrace those whose fear prevents them from displaying their individuality, or those who just lack it all together.  They are “safe bets” that come pre-packaged with all the assets and values needed to survive in the contemporary professional market and in society in general.

That’s what it has come to. 

In the land of self-expression and the first amendment, it is now chic and desirable to be just like everyone else.  To make it even worse, everyone from the politicians to the mass media has allowed, even encouraged, this state of affairs to come into place.  Perhaps worst of all is that it’s a tempting offer.

Who can deny the attraction of economic and social stability?  It’s an easy ladder to climb, and there actually is a bit of gold at the top.

Silver at least.

But maybe just pennies.

That is one choice you have.  Your alternative is a voice that you create; one honed like a blade.  It is your greatest weapon in life, the expression of your essence.  It comes from inside you, from your heart, or mind, or soul, or brain, or whatever it is you happen to have in you. 

With this weapon raised you can set out on the road for freedom.  If you don’t know who you are yet or what your voice sounds like, you will find out soon enough.  That’s what the journey is for.  When you know yourself you will know life.  Once you’ve reached that point, the rest is just figuring out what to do with yourself.

And that is your voice.  It is the knowledge of who you are and the understanding of how that person you are affects your environment, and vice versa.  With this knowledge you can sound out surely, and you can change things.  You don’t have to wait for external input, your responses come from within, from that person that you’ve spent half of your life trying to find and define.

So go out.

Let your voice be heard.

Hang in; hang on to the ledge that overhangs that pit of mediocrity.  Though they pick and pull at your fingers that cling on for life; hang on.  No, you won’t die if you fall, you’ll just vanish into that sea of nameless faces that swarms by you everyday.  Don’t let them take you, not at any cost.  You will prevail.

Then, in the end, you will know what matters and what mattered.  Sure, it’s all a bunch of nonsense; really just a bunch of cells floating around, but at least it will be yours.  Keep it true, and you will live true.  Through your failures and victories, your voice will ring true.  Through your arguments and agreements, enemies and lovers, you will ring true and your life will shine.

That is your voice.  That is your power. 

Use it.

Now.

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