The other day I attended a talk where the speaker, a very famous author, talked.
Mind you, not ‘spoke’. Talked.
Words flew out of his aged mouth from a voice that was powerful and resonant. Unfortunately, it was not a speech.
Now a speech has a beginning. It has an end. And more importantly it has a purpose. The purpose being to bring clarity on a subject into the minds of listeners. This had none of that. It was like boarding a train that never stops at any station. You get in with hope, but after a while you realise you are simply moving without arriving. And realise, the train is in a shunting yard.
The audience sits there with polite smiles. The kind you reserve for weddings where you do not know the bride or the groom but are determined to eat well. Heads nod. Not in agreement, but in endurance. And every now and then there is applause. Not because a point has been made, but because people are praying it might signal the end.
But even as I write this, I realise something. This is what happens when a speaker stops speaking. The mouth is active. The microphone is working. But the speaking has stopped. Why? Because speaking is not about words. It is about direction. It is about taking the listener somewhere.
Quite often, this happens when a speaker begins to believe his presence is enough.
That people have come to see him, to be photographed with him, not to listen to what he has to say.
At other times it is fatigue. The unwillingness to prepare different speeches for different occasions, different times, and different audiences. After all, when you have spoken a thousand times, you feel you can simply open your mouth and let experience do the rest.
But why blame only such speakers. What if the fault is also ours?
Because sadly, we listeners no longer have a discerning mind to see the difference between a speech and mere words. We nod, we clap, we agree, without ever asking ourselves whether anything meaningful has been said.
Sadly, we have forgotten how to analyse.
If a speaker sounds impressive, we are impressed. If he speaks long enough, we assume he must have said something important. And because we do not question, we encourage mediocrity.
Tell me, why should a speaker work hard to prepare a clear speech when random words will fetch the same applause?
It becomes a comfortable arrangement. The speaker talks without direction. The listener listens without discrimination. And both leave satisfied.
But nothing has really happened.
The day we rediscover the power to think, to question, to distinguish between clarity and clutter, we will change the quality of what we hear.
Because good speakers are shaped by discerning listeners.
And when listeners stop thinking, speakers stop speaking…!