Writer Has Sore Throat, Loses Voice in Social Media Frenzy

I was performing at a theater. Acting. Costumes. Makeup. The whole nine yards. Livin' the dream and getting paid to do it. Unfortunately, the toll of doing multiple shows a week did not agree with my vocal folds.

They wanted a voice rest vacation.

The ear, nose, and throat doctor-guy informed my talking parts that they got to get the vacation they wanted: two weeks of no talking while they rested and I learned to communicate with no phonation. It was odd being at the checkout in Wal-Mart, trying to communicate with the cashier that (using gestures and read-my-lips word-mouthing) "I'm not talking." Like an English-speaking American in a foreign land, I was treated like a non-native right there in my local Wal-Mart. She proceeded to talk louder and slower, assuming I was deaf or didn't speak Wal-Mart-ese.

As creatives, haven't we all been there?

We're standing at the checkout line in life with insights and ideas we want to share, yet we can't seem to find our voice. We stumble around, make a few mistakes, and start to feel emotionally flooded. We don't often know how to get our creations into the world.

Do I blog? Should I tweet more? What about making a video? I gotta get an agent...

Welcome to the land of Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed-land takes us on a journey similar to a roller coaster ride: quick thrills, getting nowhere, back to where we began, no real progress.

Too many choices often leads to no choice at all. I think the glory of all this social media stuff is that we have multiple ways to express our ideas, rants, and opinions. At times, our intense desire to express them amounts to sitting in front of a television as one show bleeds into another; we watch other people's handiwork rather than creating our own. 

If you're reading this, you are a creative. You have something to express. The only way to so it is to dive in. Right now.

Make all the mistakes you want. And keep making them. Maybe your blog posts will stink. Maybe your next ten auditions will get you nothing but rejection. Maybe your painting will never be in a gallery.

But what if your writing didn't stink, you got the job, and your art changed how someone saw the world? What if you moved forward? What if you got off that roller coaster and took a step in a new direction? What if your movement created momentum? 

"Half of the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." Thank you Mr. Robert Frost.

You and I have a voice. Even if we don't know how to fully use it... yet.

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What do you have to share with someone today? How are you going to express it?

The sky is not the limit.

Time, The Grind, and Ben Stein

A friend's Facebook status:

"My curfew was the street lights. My mom called my name, not my cell. 

I played outside with friends, not online. If I didn't eat what my mom cooked, then I didn't eat. Sanitizer didn't exist, but you could get your mouth washed out with soap. 

Getting dirty was OK, and neighbors cared as much as our parents did. Repost if you once drank water out of a garden hose and survived." 

Were those really the 'good old days?' 

Face to face. Not Facebook.

Dumbphones. Not smartphones.

C:>diskcopy. Don't even try it now or you might get sued.

During a recent episode of CBS Sunday Morning, Ben Stein noted, in his Buellerish way, that perhaps the reason time and workplace productivity seem to escape us is due, in part, to our extraordinary gadget usage.  

Rude.

I can connect in ways never before. I can spend time commenting on how cute my 3rd grade teacher's dog looks with that vest. I have over 800 friends on Facebook! I can fritter hours away and have the appearance of being productive.

OK, Mr. Stein, you win.


But what if... What if we didn't have those gadgets? Would we be better off? Would we connect with each other more regularly?


I suppose we'd have more time on our hands. 


We could innovate and create make more gadgets. Nice.