Where is my voice?

In line with the theme of this post, these ideas were prompted by reading something Robert wrote.

I've been looking back at what I wrote a few years ago. I can compare my writing then with my writing now and see a marked difference in style and voice. Arguably, my current writing is better than what I produced before. But this raises a question: who is actually writing?

When I write, there's a voice in my head playing out words, rereading sentences, going "oooh" every time a sentence structure flows just right. But how did I come to write this way? Do I write like me, or do I write like others?

I read extensively, and there's an obvious effect of other writers on my style. I care deeply about clarity—about sentences being precise and words being used appropriately. But in many ways, this voice you're reading isn't really mine. It was given to me through years in universities, years of reading high-brow non-fiction.

I write to appease myself—in that way, I'm vain. I write to appease others—in that way, I'm shallow. So what would it mean to have my own voice? It's like asking what it means to be myself.

This is an elusive question, one I can never fully answer. My voice is simply an amalgamation of other people's voices. It's not mine, and it never will be. I can never truly find "my" voice because everywhere I look, it's impossible to disentangle what's authentically me from the byproducts of my experiences and everything I've read.

As I enter the Manchester University Library, I see four laptop screens in front of me, all with some form of LLM open—ChatGPT, Claude, and others. I think to myself: they won't figure out what they think; they'll just think what the LLMs think.

But I'm no different. I think like everyone else. I speak like others. I lost my Indian accent and adopted a British-esque one. I am not who I am, yet all I am is what I am.

I wonder if I will find my voice.