Speeches
It always struck me as odd that we are always told that we are future of the world, and that we have the power to change things. Mainly because 20/30/40 years ago, they were probably told the exact same thing by their elders, but then these children grew up, and got mixed up with the whole deal of money, career, having a family and protecting themselves.
They could have been great; they could have changed things for the better. They were the future, and they are the present. So I guess they seem to think that if they can invigorate some of us to try to make a difference, then they too will have helped that in some way. Hey, if we fail to make a difference, we can always try to get the next generation to pick up where we left off, with our own speech.
I wouldn’t want to be a speech writer when I’m older. If you make too many speeches, then you end up with an audience who fall asleep whenever you get on stage. I suppose that is one of the symptoms of being one of those people who volunteers a lot, and has to make speeches. Maybe I’m just not a good speaker. I would like to think that the former of those is the main reason, but it is far more likely to be a combination of the two.
Speeches seem to only really sway the undecided and the indifferent, so it’s amusing to me that people try to make inspiring speeches about things that we all agree or disagree with. “We must help tragedy name here,” “Child/domestic/animal/name of an innocent here abuse is bad”. Of course they are. We know it happens, we don’t like it, and we want it to stop. This is why it is strange that the best speeches are about them. But the ones about controversial issues / issues which cause a divide, such as abortion, euthanasia, government policy, homework etc, generally have less memorable speeches, which are forgotten easily. And yes, I did just compare homework to abortion.
Personally, I like it when a person can make a speech that does not play on an emotional level, just giving the facts. I doubt I’m the only one who thinks that, but I am the only person I have met who prefers to hear that style of speech for things that I disagree with, than the fact based speech being something I agree with. Probably because I have a great deal of respect people who can hold an unpopular view in public, even if I have no respect for their viewpoint.
Still, I can’t exactly hold a high ground on the speech front. In my imagination, each of these posts is done in a speech like style, in a monotone, slightly American accent. We all have moments where we wish we could make a speech. With dramatic music, and no mess ups, so that we can make a point in a dramatic way, like in the movies. But truth is that if we say anything longer than 4 sentences, we get heckled, or we mess a word up, and all impact is lost. Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know.
James Elmash.
