Express Yourself

One of the biggest problems I have personally nowadays is expressing myself, in any way, shape or form. Now, I’m not going to become a ballerina (although I’d be goddamn fabulous), but I am considering one particular experiment.

In school and basically all the way through my life, I’ve hated reading out things. My voice has always been monotone on such occasions, as I refuse myself to allow the slightest hint of emotion to seep through; not that of my own, but that of the characters and narrative. The reason for this is, simply put, I always felt stupid when doing so.

Recently, two things have happened. At my university, we had a visiting writer come and talk to us about writing for radio plays and the benefits it can have. And secondly, I’ve started listening to a series of audio dramas called Dalek Empire, a spin-off series of Doctor Who. (It’s absolutely fantastic, by the way.) And due to these two things, I’ve become more and more interesting about writing for audio.

But performing? Me? It would be a train wreck.

Wouldn’t it?

Having no acting experience of any kind, and considering my previous shying away from reading aloud, I’m inclined to think so. But my voice can go through a range of different impressions, and on a personal level I do feel like I could be up to an attempt at voice-acting. I obviously won’t be great and will surely have to improve over time, but what’s the point in wondering without ever trying?

A few weeks ago, the incredibly talented Monty Oum of RoosterTeeth productions passed away at the age of 33. He was one of the greatest animators I’ve ever seen, and although I don’t know nearly enough about animation to judge it, many others who do, agree. Company CEO Matt Hullum said, “As for honoring Monty, we will do that in our own way. In lieu of flowers or gifts, we ask that you simply do something creative.”

This inspired RoosterTeeth employee Jon Risinger to make this reading of poetry. Whilst I don’t intend to read any poetry (and I’m more than a little jealous of that voice. Which is a totally manly thing to say!), this is what re-sparked the idea of writing and performing some sort of audio thing in my mind. And now you’re up to date. Now we’re here, and I need to write and attempt to read it!

Some problems I’m forseeing with this are my microphone quality, and my voice itself. It might be awful. My microphone is from a gaming headset, and should be decent enough quality, although obviously not to a professional standard as can be heard in Jon’s reading. In fact, it’s probably a foolish idea to post about this before even knowing it will work.

If this does work out, the first one will be short. I’m talking maybe a couple of minutes. I’ll post it on Youtube and link to it in a new blog post, so long as you’re interested. So long as it works. So long as I don’t suck. Which is rather probable.

So, this is my attempt at not only finding a new way to express myself, but also to keep the influence of Monty Oum alive. I didn’t tweet about him or make any mention on Facebook, but his passing did sadden me as it did many untold numbers of others. Thirty three years is far too short, though what he achieved in that time is far more than many of us do in our lifetimes.

I Lost My Voice

For the entirety of my life I’ve been an extremely non-confrontational person, mostly because I consider getting into arguments to be a waste of time, energy, and mental stability. But today I scrolled past something on my Facebook feed and realised that if I didn’t stop to say something here, I may as well lock myself in a cell and throw away the key, because that’s about as much use as I’d be.

I’m a human like anyone else.  I have the right to have my own opinions, and to voice them. I shouldn’t restrict myself from doing this just because I’m afraid I’ll be met with some sort of dispute which would lead to the dreaded “confrontation”. So yes, I should speak up and not be afraid that I’m the only one who thinks that legalising weed is the dumbest idea since Google+, that depending on alcohol for a good time is just as bad, that this culture of constant parties is childish and that many of its party-goers are foolishly irresponsible. And as much as that makes me sound like the least fun person in the world, I shouldn’t care. And I won’t say I don’t, because that would be lying. But that doesn’t mean I should shy away and be silent forever.

This silence I’ve grown accustomed to has become worse and worse over the last few years, and the repression has taken its toll on my mind. Keeping my lips sealed means that the unvoiced opinions bounce around in my mind, sometimes for hours, causing incessant chattering and causing more damage than any so-called confrontation could.

Drugs are bad, too many feminists aren’t for equality but the downfall of men, religion shouldn’t confine people’s freedom, atheists shouldn’t shit on religious followers, critics of most kinds are overpayed and damaging to creators, most publishers in any industry are money-stealing corporate-heads, democracy isn’t democracy when it’s as manipulated as the society we live in, every realist’s a pessimist and for the love of whatever deity you may or may not believe in, if we don’t pay more attention to mental health soon it will be the downfall of all happiness because it is spreading like a wave and the internet is only making things worse.

I could go on but I’m probably not important enough to sway your opinions with mine. And quite right too. Just don’t do what I did and stay silent for so long that you begin to lose sight of who you really are. Everybody has an opinion, and even if you don’t want to step up and voice it, make sure you don’t hide behind something when you’re called upon to make a stand.

Oh, and anyone who thinks that swearing is indicative of low intelligence and a lack of professional thinking can royally go and fuck themselves.