Mark Twain said, “A person who won’t read has no advantage over a person who can’t read.”

Might we all agree that someone who chooses not to speak lacks any superiority to one who is physically unable to do so?

Some of us are afraid to talk in a group or remember when we lacked the courage to voice our ideas, opinions, and knowledge. According to the National Social Anxiety Center:

The fear of public speaking is the most common phobia ahead of death, spiders, or heights. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, affects about 40% of the population. The underlying fear is judgment or negative evaluation by others. 

Think about those terrified of expressing themselves at parties, raising a hand in class, and voicing a difference of opinion. How many of us do not talk back to a critical parent or fail to say no to someone whose approval, affection, or assistance means everything to us?

Consider all the living creatures without words. They sometimes sting or bite, sing or chatter, bark or growl, lick our faces, purr, meow, cluck, or cuddle.

The wind may move a tree’s branches and rustle its leaves. Fish splash in the water, and flowers offer scent, but silence prevails.

Some are dangerous, but many are essential to continuing human life on our shared planet. Yet none use language to remind us of their importance in such activities as pollination or the food chain that sustains every creaturely link.

The Monarch Butterfly does not promote its disappearing beauty. Our nonhuman neighbors do not fight back despite the destruction of their habitat via deforestation, hunting, and climate change.

Our lack of action in deeds and words on their behalf is also a failure to defend ourselves in the world we both need and enjoy.

For as long as I can recall, trepidation, hesitation, self-consciousness, shame, and the attached insecurity have been considered personal matters, silencing the afflicted first and motivating trips to therapy after much unhappiness. They singled out one person at a time. These days, they no longer begin and end with us alone.

PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

The late Mari Ruti wrote, “We live in a world of fragile things.” We are touched by the delicacy of many of them, not least those found in our immediate surroundings.

Most of us have a residence we care for along with our small, treasured, non-living objects and necessary spaces. Even a desk in a cubicle at the office.

From a larger perspective, however, our home doesn’t end at our doorstep, garden, or on a neighborhood walk with our beloved children and pets.

Indeed, every goodness exists only because we live within a web of attachments, so long as those attachments survive, so long as we — each of us — ensure their survival and bolster our security and joy by making it so.

As John Donne wrote 400 years ago,

          No man is an island,
          Entire of itself.
          Each is a piece of the continent,
          A part of the main.
          If a clod be washed away by the sea,
          Europe is the less.
          As well as if a promontory were.
          As well as if a manor of thine own
          Or of thine friend’s were.
          Each man’s death diminishes me,
          For I am involved in mankind.
          Therefore, send not to know
          For whom the bell tolls,
          It tolls for thee.

Global study of 71,000 animal species finds 48% are declining

Fact Sheet: Global Species Decline

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The two photos are the work of the superb photographic artist Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is a King Penguin Profile on South Georgia Island, 2022.

The second is a Male Prairie Chicken, Wisconsin Rapids, May 2023.