Voices

Matthew L. Brown

Oct 6

5 min read

When Everybody Is Talking, Discernment Is Knowing Who Deserves To Be Heard

VOICES

When Everybody Is Talking, Discernment Is Knowing Who Deserves to Be Heard

We are living and navigating a world that is screaming loud.

William Shakespeare once described life in Macbeth as being “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Centuries later, that phrase feels less like literature and more like a diagnosis.

There is sound everywhere.

Voices today carry a sharp tonal edge—a cacophony of noise ricocheting across our lives, piercing peace, interrupting reflection, and competing for the increasingly scarce real estate of our attention.

And some of the noise is literal.

The World Health Organization estimates that approximately one in five people in the European Union, about 100 million people are exposed to unhealthy levels of road-traffic noise. But there is another kind of noise pollution that cannot be measured in decibels.

Opinion pollution.

Everyone has something to say.

Podcasts. Digital content. Social media. Substacks. TED Talks. Talk shows. YouTube channels. Livestreams. Comment sections. Group chats. Twenty-four-hour news cycles.

Pundits have opinions. Journalists have interviews. Business owners have platforms. Shopkeepers have perspectives. Moguls and mutts have microphones.

Everybody. Everywhere. Talking.

And somehow, with more communication than any generation in human history, we may be getting worse at actually hearing one another.

THE TYRANNY OF THE LOUD

Voices have become arduous, combative, vile, and sometimes dangerously obnoxious.

Our thoughts are invaded by somebody else’s opinion before we have sufficiently developed our own. Our feelings can be shaped by algorithms engineered to keep us emotionally engaged. Even our faith can be hijacked by a cold crudeness that once would have seemed incompatible with the character of Christ.

We have confused volume with validity.

We assume that because somebody is loud, they are right; because something is repeated, it must be true; because something is viral, it must be valuable.

Not so.

An old proverb says that an empty wagon makes the most noise.

Maybe it is time to stop chasing wagons simply because they are rattling.

Interestingly, our increased connectivity has not eliminated loneliness. Gallup reported in 2024 that 20% of U.S. adults said they had experienced loneliness “a lot of the day” before being surveyed, up from the 17–18% range measured during several preceding quarters.

That raises an uncomfortable question:

Are we lonely because we need more voices—or because we have forgotten how to experience silence, presence, community and meaningful conversation?

Maybe we don’t need another notification.

Maybe we need stillness.

Maybe we don’t need another commentator telling us what to think.

Maybe we need enough quiet to hear ourselves think.

I PROPOSE A MORATORIUM

Today, I propose a moratorium on voices that are loud but have little to say.

I am reclaiming my life from the tyranny of empty wagons.

You should too.

If you demand my attention, bring substance.

If you request my ears, bring wisdom.

If you enter my mental space, bring something that challenges, strengthens, enlightens, encourages, or transforms.

Attention is too expensive to give away cheaply.

So before granting someone unlimited access to your mind, I propose the 180-Second Listening Test.

Give the voice three minutes.

Then ask:

Is this informing me or merely inflaming me?

Is this enlarging my understanding—or reinforcing my outrage?

Is there substance beneath the sound?

And finally:

Will this matter in ten minutes, ten hours, or ten years?

That last question changes everything.

Some things deserve ten minutes.

Some deserve ten years.

Most deserve neither.

Discernment is learning the difference.

MAYBE PEOPLE ARE SCREAMING BECAUSE THEY FEEL INVISIBLE

In fairness, perhaps some of today’s volume comes from something deeper.

People don’t feel seen.

People don’t feel heard.

People don’t feel valued.

So we actually increase the decibel.

We adopt the squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease protocol.

“If they won’t hear me, I’ll speak louder.”

“If they don’t acknowledge me, I’ll become more provocative.”

“If thoughtful doesn’t trend, I’ll become outrageous.”

And eventually communication stops being about connection and becomes competition.

But I await the day when less becomes more.

When words become weighty again.

When silence isn’t awkward.

When conversation isn’t combat.

When listening isn’t merely waiting for your opportunity to speak.

When we stop measuring influence by followers and start measuring it by fruit.

Abraham Lincoln understood something about the power of disciplined language. His Gettysburg Address lasted only slightly more than two minutes, according to the Library of Congress. Yet those few hundred words have traveled through generations.

Consider just seven:

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people…”

Few words. Enormous weight.

Lincoln reminds us that you don’t always need more words.

You need the right words.

Growth Needs Space—and the Right People. Join the Webinar.

Aligned for What's Next Monthly Webinar Session - October

October 22, 2026, 8:00 – 8:45 PM EDTZoom Webinar

Grab Your Seat

THE VOICE ABOVE THE NOISE

Jesus offers an even deeper model.

In John 10:27, He says:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say His sheep hear the loudest voice.

They recognize His voice. That’s relationship. That’s familiarity and discernment.

A shepherd didn’t need to outshout every competing sound in the countryside. The sheep learned the distinctive sound of the one they trusted.

Perhaps therein lies our answer.

The way through a noisy world isn’t necessarily finding a bigger amplifier.

It is developing a better ear.

Covenant relationships and meaningful conversations teach us which voices deserve access. The goal isn’t merely hearing something; it is recognizing what is worthy of following.

BECOMING DISTINCTIVE: THREE PRACTICES

1. REDUCE THE NOISE BEFORE YOU INCREASE YOUR VOICE.

Schedule silence.

Turn something off.

Put the phone down. Drive occasionally without the podcast. Resist beginning every morning by consuming somebody else’s thoughts.

Before receiving the world, recover yourself.

Silence isn’t emptiness. Silence is space.

And sometimes God whispers because intimacy shouldn’t require amplification.

2. MAKE YOUR WORDS WEIGH SOMETHING.

Don’t speak merely because you have access to a microphone.

Before posting, preaching, podcasting, texting, commenting, or responding, ask:

Does this need to be said?

Does it need to be said by me?

Does it need to be said now?

We need fewer verbal calories and more nutritional communication.

DISTINCT people don’t simply add sound to rooms.

They add substance.

Let your words clarify confusion, encourage exhausted people, challenge complacency, restore dignity, provoke thought, and create possibility.

3. BECOME A VOICE THAT ENERGIZES RATHER THAN EXHAUSTS.

After people encounter your voice, what remains?

Hope or heaviness? Clarity or confusion?

Courage or anxiety? Possibility or paralysis?

Being DISTINCT doesn’t mean becoming louder than everybody else.

It means becoming recognizable because your words carry a different spirit.

Your presence should lower the temperature without lowering the truth.

Your words should have enough conviction to challenge people and enough compassion to remind them they still matter.

THE TUNING FORK

A tuning fork doesn’t argue with the noise in the room.

Strike it, and it produces one clear, consistent frequency.

Musicians use that sound not because it is the loudest sound in the room, but because it provides a reliable reference point by which everything else can be tuned.

That’s the analogy for the DISTINCT life.

Don’t compete with the noise.

Become the tuning fork.

When the culture becomes chaotic, remain clear.

When everybody becomes cruel, remain courageous and compassionate.

When everybody is shouting, speak with measured authority.

When words become cheap, make yours expensive.

When voices become weapons, make yours medicine.

And when the world becomes so loud that people can barely hear themselves think, become the kind of person whose presence reminds them what clarity sounds like.

Because ultimately, the most powerful voice in the room isn’t always the loudest.

It’s the one that, when it finally speaks, makes the room get quiet.