The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and loo… - Gerry Spence

How to Jump: Once again we stand before our audience. The _Others_ wait for us to speak. Still we ask, how can we jump free? How can we speak. I say, turn inward. Feel the fear. Again, touch where it resides — yes, just above the solar plexus, that one glowing spot in painful spasm. Feel it. for there we can begin with something we know is _real_. And now can we jump?

Sometimes when I begin a speech, I look each member of the audience in the eyes. In a large group it sometimes takes a half minute or more. The silence grows uncomfortable. the people stare back. I hear the nervous coughs. But something has happened between us. Without words, I have shared with them the same feelings I suffer. I have felt fear, and then turn, have felt its discomfort in the pressing silence in the room.

Finally I begin, “It’ is all right for us to feel uncomfortable as we launch our relationship. We do not know each other. We have no experience upon which to trust each other. Why shouldn’t we feel uncomfortable. I wondered as I looked at you what you expect of me. What do you think of me? And as I look at you, you too, must have wondered what I am thinking of you.” I have jumped. “We are going to have a valuable time together.” I have broken free.

Arguing to hear one's own wonderful voice: I know people who use argument merely to hear their own voices. They are noisemakers. These people seem perfectly secure, but they are enchanted with their words, enthralled with their own wisdom, and they are, to be sure, as boring as popcorn without salt. They have, during the course of their lives, made so much noise and filled the air with so much authoritative banality that they have had no time to form an original thought, nor have they given themselves the opportunity to hear and learn anything from listening to anyone else.

When we come before the school board, most often we do not face those interested in the education of our children, but those interested in the maintenance of power. These contests are war. Any other paradigm is an illusion. It is not a mere contest, like athletes plunging down the hill on skis for the fastest time. It is not a dance in which the most graceful will be rewarded with a medal. This is war. Once we understand that the struggle is war, we can wage war and win. The key to winning any war is to control the war. This does not mean I seek to control my opponent.