Why Passive Voice

Throughout my writing you will on several occasions find that I will use the phrase "passive voice". You may wonder what the hell I'm on about, constantly referring to things as passive voice.

Passive voice entered my life just about the same day Mr. Cunningham entered my life. Cunningham was amongst the few people I actually liked during my high school years; he entered my life as my 9th grade English teacher. Cunnignham being an English teacher was very particular about correcting grammatical mistakes. He has this red pen that he would use to practically sketch on your paper. Rather than circling your mistakes once and saying watch out for so and so, he had the habit of circling each of your reoccurring mistakes one by one. Everyone had their thing, mine was PASSIVE VOICE.

Wikipedia sums up passive voice the following way:

"The passive voice is a grammatical voice in which the subject receives the action of a transitive verb. Passive voice emphasizes the process rather than who is performing the action."

For example instead of saying "John gave Mary a book you say Mary was given a book by John."

It took me some time to understand this passive voice jargon so Cunningham laid it out for me.
Passive voice makes you writing dull and in a way backwards. Instead of writing in an active tone you end up writing in a commentary tone. Its sort of like being re-active rather than pro-active.

Moving on. Fast forward to college.
I hated passive voice.
It made the writing boring and gave me the impression that the author really didn't want to own up to his or her writing.
Red marks automatically starting appearing in front of my eyes until I actually starting marking them myself.

Moving on. Fast forward to now.
I have realized that passive voice is everywhere. It changes forms. Passive voice isn't only a writing thing it's a living thing. Any indefinative action you take, any action you copy, any action to blend in, any action to appear like the social norm resembles passive voice to me.

So as you can see, Mr. Cunningham's red marks on my high school papers have evolved into red splotches that I observe in daily life.

Passive voice is phenomenon that is embraced within our societies. It creates the social norms, the socially accepted and appreciated. Regardless of these societal building blocks, I continue to observe and point out the passive voice that lays beneath myself and society.