From Active to Passive Voice: intentionally shifting the focus

Have you ever noticed that, depending on how you set up your grammar corrector, it “corrects” a passive voice sentence by suggesting that you rewrite it in an active voice? I wondered what would happen if everyone started following this suggestion without pausing and reflecting on whether that is a change they want to make.

What would we miss by changing from a passive voice to an active voice?

Today, I use this analogy to illustrate the opportunity we miss when solely focusing on the actor and the actions.

What happens when we shift our eyes to the receiver and the process?

The search for a subject, the owner of the action, seems almost automatic in our speech. It is as if focusing on the subject, whether to praise or blame, brings us some resolution, but does it?

Ancient texts and scientific articles often use passive voice. But if we start talking in passive voice all the time, people will most likely get annoyed, and some will not even understand what we're talking about. Would that be just a linguistic style? I think understanding how we got here is a topic for another conversation, a vast one I am unfamiliar with.

My point is that we may be unwillingly and unknowingly shifting to a more self-centric society when our words overfocus on the action and the actors.

What if we intentionally shift our focus to the receiver and the process? That is precisely what some use of the passive voice does for us.

Sometimes the subject is implicitly known or irrelevant to the message:

 - Mistakes were made (it does not matter by whom, and the focus is on the mistakes) - shifting from blame to betterment-

- They were blessed (implicitly by God, and the focus is on who received the blessing and the act of blessing) - 

- The cells were treated for infection and left to rest for three days in the incubator (adding flow to a process description) - 

Sometimes, it is intentionally a mystery, so it gets the reader’s attention:

- The window was suddenly opened (by whom? This is the mystery) -

The passive voice implicitly conveys the subject’s action but intentionally focuses on the receiver. It makes me wonder how hard it is for some people to step back and receive instead of giving. Receiving requires humility, which is usually not associated with strength in our society.

Are we so broken that words are more potent in engaging with ourselves and people than the humble willingness to be transformed by the exchange of giving and receiving? Are we that proud?

Constant reflection and deep awareness are required to break free from the automatic flow of self-preservation and move toward other-centeredness and collective transformation.

I invite you to experiment intentionally by changing your phrases to passive voice. Maybe you want to emphasize a process rather than the subject or describe an observation poetically. Perhaps, you would like to focus on the recipient and the act of receiving. Just play with it and see what happens! Wonders may happen!

Be wonderful,