In classrooms, theaters, and auditoriums across the world, people continually bear witness to a situation that it seems will be the eternal rerun of our public speaking class; (ironically enough) a poorly given public speech. However, can we change the channel? You've read the statistics, you've heard it from your friends, and you've seen it in class.

Give us the opportunity to gossip about the latest Game of Thrones episode and we turn into a confident, chatty Lannister, but seat classmates and a teacher in front of us and all of a sudden our words fail us like an abandoned army leaves their courageous leader alone to die. Perhaps that metaphor isn't so inaccurate.

Now, we obviously don't die after, or during, giving a bad speech. However, why is the anxiety so lifelike and threatening? It might be of interest for people to know how it is that much of our visual processing has improved evolutionarily. In her book The Fruit, The Tree, and The Serpent, anthropologist Lynne Isbel notes a positive correlation between primate vision and snake abundance; the more snakes there were in one area over time, the more likely it was for primates to develop better vision in that same area.

Additionally, one of the initial reasons we developed the ability to perceive color was to be able to identify ripe fruit. We can conclude that our visual magnificence serves a purpose; it indicates threat and reports resources. So what do we perceive standing nervously in front of a class with a poorly prepared speech? Perhaps what our ancestors felt when they were ill-prepared to scatter away from a larger, faster, deadly snake.

Not only is there nothing but a threat, but we lose hope in knowing that at that moment, no fruit or other resources can save us. We've abstracted the level of threat however, and instead of literal death, it's death of identity, credibility, a grade, a social status, and whatever more you'd like to derive as something one might lose from failing an assignment. So how do we deal with the snake?

How many of us have been told to imagine an audience in their underwear if we felt afraid in front of a crowd? Well, I'm willing to bet that people not in my fifth-grade class have still heard the saying. However, what's imperatively incorrect is that it's ineffective to denote the danger one is scared of in certain situations, rather, it's better to incorporate a matured element to handle the scenario. If someone is deathly afraid of puppies, would tell them to imagine puppies in cute little teensy underwear ameliorate their fright? It would be adorable for the rest of us, but for them, it's just their worst nightmare with an irrelevant change of undergarments.

In Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, we see an interesting course of action taken when searching for the holy grail. Now, the holy grail holds something of a redemptive quality. So out the king and his knights go towards the forest, but where do they search?

The Knights enter the forest from the place which looks darkest to him. So what does this mean? Perhaps it is an echo of the Jungian dictum, that what we need the most is where we least want to look. The redemptive quality lies where we will find it hardest to bring ourselves to. Obviously! If we want to be a good public speaker, where else shall we speak publicly if not in front of an audience!

Never mind the fact that such a statement doesn't yet consider what it takes for one to do such a thing well, though. Let us assume one decides to enter the point of the forest that looks darkest, stand up in front of the class, and straighten themselves before the serpent. What then are they to do?

Let us return to the snakes. I've mentioned that we traded our animalistic features for something we consider a cornerstone of humanity; our brains. Imagine the scenario where your group of primates is aware of the fact that the snake is its predator, which is very likely the case, considering that if it were not they'd be dead. There appears to be an innate snake fear in humans, similar to how there is an innate fear of cat in mice and rats. Part of what led to this fear was our discovery of the future. If we could conceptualize our death, what that meant was we would eventually grow to conceptualize what would bring us to death itself.

From that line of thinking came the idea of sacrifice, which benefits us--with the symptom of dread--to this day. To put it in terms of public speaking, what would bring us to 'death' would be to not write, practice, or even care for the speech we're to give, while sacrifice would be the work we put in to do those very things. The benefit of our work is the promulgation of truth into society from the voices of honest people. Who better represents such an action, than a mythological hero? One of the most ancient hero's known, the Mesopotamian God is known as Marduk, parallels in action much of what we should do.

Marduk, to give context, has a head with eyes all around and is capable of speaking magic words. With this power, he exits the walled city in which he resides and encounters the reptilian monster Taimat, who threatens the city constantly. Marduk uses his sword to cut Taimat into pieces, and the kingdom continues to live from then on. (It's worth considering at this point why Dragons are consistently depicted as things that hoard gold or treasure, perhaps it's that which we don't want to face that holds what we need to better ourselves.

Enter the forest from the point that looks darkest to you.) Aha! So we cut the snake into pieces. Of course. How silly of our ancestors in a time that predated swords to die in their sword-lacking ways. Just plain silly. Marduk, being the hero, does what a hero does. Now, how many of us would consider ourselves heroes?

Aha! So we can't cut the snake into pieces. Well, perhaps it is that the art of public speaking requires much more than pretty words and a confident strut. If we stand in front of the snake and choose to bring ourselves to that position, it very well could bite us. It would be as if we'd engulfed ourselves in a fire easily avoidable. But like a Phoenix, we might learn something about ourselves and rise from the ashes once left behind. To continually die and be reborn, to stand in front of the snake, to enter the forest from where it looks darkest, to face Taimat, that is where we speak for our people, that is where we recover a redemptive quality, that is where we prevent culture from destruction.

Speech is the sword of intellectual combat. No wonder it hurts so much to lose a debate even if unjust, to be proven wrong which requires it to be just or even to stand in front of a classroom full of (what I'm sure are) loving eyes which we can only (in the moment) perceive as threatening. So let us embrace it, and grow in character. From then on, it will not be the terrors of the world that tower over us, but instead it will be our ability to articulate truth courageously, and to fight for a message worth hearing, that casts a shadow over all.

So, what are you to take away from this article of myth and evolution, yet somehow also of public speech? Know that you can be, and are, more courageous and strong than you think you might be. Do you not have eyes all around your head? We have a library of books written across time, the blessing of a social life which grants conversation with a multitude of identities and characters, and... the internet... to tell us the truth.

Can we not take those words which we have recognized as true, and turn them into the message we must bring forth to the world? From that action, is the chaotic monster of what it is that plagues a nation with an unheard hero not diminished? Again, speech is the sword of intellectual combat. Taimat lies where we remain silent. Marduk lies where we remain hesitant to go. And who among us does not have a voice that yearns to speak?

There is a saying in the book of Matthew which has misled readers for centuries. Delivered within the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims that "the meek shall inherit the Earth." The Cambridge English Dictionary defines Meek; "quiet and unwilling to disagree or fight or to strongly support personal ideas and opinions." Now, that makes Jesus seem quite cowardly, does it not? However, we've nonetheless taken this to be the original message of the passage. Oh how Heidegger would be furious at our mistranslation! Early Greek translations show that to be "meek" meant something closer to having (a) sword(s), and remaining determined to keep them sheathed until needed.

Sounds a lot like martial arts, the practice of teaching great physical strength so that if one needs to use it, they may, but if they need not, they don't. It is with the growth, recognition, and taming of such a malevolence that we demand respect from all, including ourselves. It is clear, to hone our intellect, and to articulate our ideas across cultures, groups, and generations, we must be able to speak. But are we so naive to assume all will listen, let alone not provide a refutation?

Yes, to speak does not always mean to be in combat. Gossiping about Game of Thrones won't happen all on its own! Neither, however, will discussions about mass injustice. When the opposing sword is drawn, when the serpent rattles, when Taimat awakens, it is our job as latent and potential orators of truth and justice to defeat that which, simply put, truth defeats!

But to discover our talent is not a given trait, and the first step in becoming such a hero awaits us all in front of our classes and teachers. Let us realize that we can be chatty Lannisters, and... gracious... Lannisters? Well, you get the idea. To truly speak is to put one's honest self into words and volunteer to be made vulnerable. But it's through that exposure that we accumulate an iron character.

Once we engage in a process that frightens, then challenges, then rewards, do we conquer not just public speaking, but honest communication itself. The snake will always exist and Taimat gets put back together wherever injustice, wrongdoing, and tyranny reigns. We've got a lot to fight as truthful beings. With the absence of our truth, who knows what horror shall rule? I'm up for drawing my sword. Heroes of tomorrow, what do you say?