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A Life Well Spent
The tone of a voice reaches me before the words. If someone has the parental tone, I switch off, because it reminds me of when I forgot to brush my teeth before I went to school. If someone has the salvational tone I start looking around desperately to see if I can find any doors. If someone has an angry tone I get scared that they are scorching the earth and nothing is going to grow again for 5000 years. James Hillman said that we should try and find a speech that is pregnant with the ‘voluptuousness’ of the ‘psyche’ and that has the joy and passion of ‘éros’. Put it this way, when Rumi speaks I could listen to him for days. — Jon Wilson
Voice quality is important to me. A grating voice is a huge detraction in my world. I’m sure my wife’s voice sealed the deal for me from the first moment she spoke. It’s a voice I could listen to for centuries without getting tired of it. I admit it’s a little less attractive when she’s irritated or angry but she can’t produce ugly sounds if she tried.
My father had a deep, gravelly monotone. There was something exhausting about his voice. He droned on and on, never seeming to pause even to take a breath. He needed only the most basic audience to hold forth. It could be the dog, a toolbox, the passing scenery from the car, he was always talking. Every fleeting thought was verbalized.
