The art of making human noise...

I had my appendix removed years ago.

It was minutes away from bursting.

I didn’t need it before they whipped it out and I haven’t missed it since.

It was one of my few remaining vestigial organs.

It used to serve a digestive function way back in the day. Until the day it wasn’t needed any more.

Long before the word evolution even evolved.

I think vocal chords are going the same way.

It might take them a few thousand years to give up the ghost…but the way things are shaping up, we’ll wake up one morning and be able to walk the walk.

Just unable to talk the talk.

In 2015, the number of emails sent and received every day was over 205 BILLION.

This is expected to reach over 246 BILLION by the end of 2019.

According to Bloomberg’s Betty Liu, 8 TRILLION (yep, I said TRILLION) text messages are sent every year. That’s 350 BILLION every month.

There are currently 6 BILLION mobile subscribers worldwide.

Social networking, which used to be done by word of mouth, is now being done by word of net.

Pretty soon our fingers will be talking more than our vocal chords.

Not long after that our vocal chords will get the message.

“What the Hell have you done for me lately?”

They’ll probably get the message by text.

There are some who believe this is progress.

They believe that technology is the new religion and that the future exists at the end of their fingertips.

They walk through life, heads down, thumbs constantly on the move, communicating with the world, ignorant of everything that’s going on around them.

They have lost the art of making human noise.

They have given up the sheer joy of speech.

They have banned words to the world of wi-fi.

Don’t get me wrong.

I love keyboards, computers, mobiles, internet, social everything, facebook, linkedin, pinterest, twitter, emails, texts, and all that jazz.

I love writing at a hundred words a minute…reading at a thousand words an hour.

I love silent words, made on a screen. Present when I need them. Absent when I don’t.

But I love noisy words more.

Give me the sound of the human voice box.

Give me the joyous sound of infectious laughter.

The heart-rending, gut-wrenching, sound of crying.

The heated sounds of debate and argument.

The soft sounds of love and persuasion.

The excited sounds of surprise and discovery.

The wonderful sound of animated conversation.

All performed with the human voice.

Au naturel.

By default.

Any day of the week…