The alpha male of matinee cinema always has a seductively powerful voice. Try as hard as you can, you can’t detect the slightest shade of fear in it. Heroine’s father tells him to go jump? “I will be back,” he roars bravely. Death stares him in the face? “Shoot,” he says calmly. Villain handcuffs hero’s mom and dangles her on a cliff? He will cry out boldly, “Don’t drop her. I surrender.” He will throw his gun down, and declare with an earnest voice — “Mom. I love you more than anything in the world.”
Unfortunately, you can’t copy-paste that voice in your daily life, or people will seriously doubt your sanity. In real life, you are expected to carry a shade card of various fears inside your voice, and use the correct shade for any given situation. Your elder brother yells at you? You can’t be an alpha male and say, “Relax bro.” Your butt will get kicked. You have to whine like a puppy for him to calm down. Teacher hauls you up for sloppy homework? You can’t say with a smile — “Yup, I goofed it up”. You will have to pull a long face and timidly say, “Oh, I am so sorry ma’am” or she will throw you out of the class.
This shade card in your voice, loaded with fears, is the price you have to pay for being born in the place and time you were born in. Society will never permit you to ever think or speak like an alpha male until you earn your laurels. Till then, you have to be in bondage and grovel in a million tiny ways.
Most of the time, you have to express yourself more like a sidekick to the hero, who is a nervous bumbling subservient chap, always a bit fearful and low key. After a while it gets to you. You become like the guy you speak, and rarely if ever, speak like the man you want to become.
This is the way humanity has been wired. In a totalitarian state, everyone except the bosses will speak with a shiver. In a civilised democracy, the voices open up and you can hear bold strains here and there. But the fears are very much present.
So where is the way out? If you don’t have the skills of an orator and you haven’t mastered the secret of using your voice, the society will never allow you to express yourself without injecting some strain of fear in your voice. However, you can always pretend to be afraid. This is something you can easily do. Your voice will have the same whiny tone as before. But there will be an essential difference. Your earlier voice believed the fear and had the power to tamper with your mind. Now, your voice just acts out the fear, and you know it’s all drama and nothing else.
If your elder brother yells at you, you now whine with a difference. You are just pretending to be scared to resolve the situation. Teacher shouts at you? Talk with a humble tone, but know it’s all fake — to please the teacher and escape her wrath. Even better, wink at your best friend and suppress a smile first. This is the simplest and best trick you can pull off on society at large. Give them the fear they want, but fake it, and bounce back shamelessly.
Inside, you are the alpha male, who is completely fearless. Outside, you can play the role of his sidekick sometimes. It is all in the acting bro. All the world’s a stage. Life needs a sterling performance from you. Stay tuned. I’m just warming up. Lots more next week.