Back to the permission thing (from somewhere way back in this blog), it is intricately linked to storytelling and voice isn't it? Giving yourself permission to tell stories (out of school), to be seen *and* heard, to break all of the polite niceties that silence us more and more as we "mature." Incoming messages overwhelmingly outnumber outward expression. What does that do to the wiring of our brains I wonder?

Four year olds have no shortage of stories to tell while forty-four year olds go mum.

Not hard to figure out. Control damages voice. sometimes beyond repair.

Control, and its sidekick fear. Fear of reprisal. Fear of being wrong. Fear of rejection. We're bound so tightly by these constraints, its no wonder that our voices are choked to a hoarse whisper.

Getting to Chris' post re: Telegraph Road. I've been looking at it. And thinking and thinking. Then looking some more. Initially, a little scary, huh? Images evoke feelings--rape of voice comes to mind. But lets look at the institutions in the diagram: Art, government, business, education, media, and religion. Which of these give wings to voice? Art, of course, is the absolute platform for voice. But looking deeper, all of these institutions are "places" for voice--it's just that the voices of the sub-culture within these institutions hold the *stories* (ah ha--a theme emerges). Maybe it's that within each of these institutions, there are layers. We have to, perhaps, strip away the layers to get to voices... to stories.

And within those layers, there are the believable, the credible versus bold-face lies, deceit.

I don't know, I've only begun to noodle on his construct. But it looks fascinating to me. And pretty risky, which, I guess, is the point. ;-)