A wise man (though I cannot for the life of me remember exactly who) once said that “the human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you’re born and never stops until you get up to speak in public.” What is it, exactly, about public speaking that paralyzes people so? Is it the fear of embarrassment in front of our peers? Or is it something deeper, more insidious?
In one class, when the idea of weekly presentations was brought up to be voted upon, nearly every person in the class made some comment of “I’m scared to death of public speaking, so I’d rather not.” And yet, we speak in public every day. Most of us hold audiences captivated with our ramblings upon just about any subject, from what to eat for dinner that night to the recent movies that have just come out. In fact, sometimes the people who are the most vocal are the ones who are the most afraid of public speaking. They have no trouble going on and on about this that, and the other thing, but as soon as the speech becomes official, they freeze up.
It is this fear of public speaking that creates politicians. You may scoff at that statement, and think “dear me, this writer has gone completely off the deep end! How can fear of public speaking lead to the deranged and often terrifying world of professional politicians?” It’s actually quite simple, dear readers. After all, politicians are the ones who CHOOSE to make speeches, almost on a daily basis, to audiences of millions, broadcast all over the country, and at times, over the world. Thus, to be a politician, one must have at least one particular characteristic: you must not be afraid of public speaking.
Mind you, most professional politicians have the advantage of someone writing their speeches for them. This person has devoted their life to making a particular politician not appear as an ass. This is an incredibly difficult thing for them to do. The politician actually has the easy job: he or she just has to look at the Teleprompter, and read what’s written there as though he or she means it. But in order to become a professional, one must first write one’s own speeches, and make them aloud in front of what is likely to be an extremely difficult and critical audience of not just voters and citizens, but also political cartoonists, and of course, columnists.
The politician must therefore have a particular invulnerability, or ego, which allows them to do so and to take criticism unscathed. His or her ego must be large enough to utter such phrases as “I didn’t inhale” and “read my lips, no new taxes” without even batting an eyelash. This ego is also, of course, what allows a politician to sleep with countless women (or men, let’s not be gender biased here, that wouldn’t politically correct...), lie to their spouses and their country, and think that everything that they’ve done for that country will make them seem like a good person.
Mind you, it’s not entirely the politicians’ faults that they are the way they are. After all, we’re the ones that voted them into office.
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