Speech

Words are in the mouth, but when do they become speech? Yes, you can flutter your lips as quickly as you like, utter the most frequent and effective witticisms that infect the day, yet are these words your own?

We copy too much of the others and treat them as ourselves. The instant someone whips their tongue with a tremendous crack, we nod and think “Now that’s for me to take!” And so, we imitate the form and fill it with relevant contents, mixing it around in our heads until the blanks are occupied with the appropriate variables so that we may ship the phrase out for the wrongdoers to hear and shrivel. Imitation is what your secret is when this technique is used. Before you adopted the phrasing as your own, the one you copied it from adopted it from another, and he another, and he another. It’s words, copy/paste. Don’t say it is otherwise unless you like to lie.

Ay, and speech! Speech does not originate from the form of the tongue and its slithery methods. Cleverness slips along splendidly but carries little weight. What the clever use, and you copy, are shadows of truly weighty language. Times have come and gone in which orators had tremendous powers. Their speech (Speech! Not words!) could crumble the great mountains who bow only to the movements of the earth and the heart of the good speaker, for it is the heart where speech is poured forth. the great orator does not drool with drivel. He asserts and ascends! The rattling skeletons that are imitators of clever tongues shatter at the sound of his voice because he reveals their lack of flesh. This mighty speech producer copies none, imitates none, appropriates none, but lets light shine out of his throat.

Do you wish to be as he is, hm? Do you crave his powers of speech? Oh, poor skeleton. Waste no time listening to him from a tremendous distant until his voice is but an echo so that you may replicate the noises of his mouth… because his mouth is not his heart. If you wish to be like the great orator, put an ear to his chest. Listen to his heartbeat. If all you can do is imitate, then imitate the thumping and bring life into you, pure life! Allow the heart to pump its energy throughout your body so that you may feel the voice of power and life instead of merely replicating its motions. Then, only then, will you no longer utter words. No, you will bellow speech.