The King's Speech - 'To Be or Not to Be'?

There is something very wonderful about going to a movie which everyone has raved about, a long time after its release. That is the cinema is very quiet and none of The Wittertainment Code of Conduct is being broken in any way, whatsoever - BLISS!

And That Bliss I experienced last night as I finally got to watch 'The Kings Speech' but, profoundly grateful as I was for the quiet ( I have to say that viewing a film has never in my experience been such an uninterrupted experience as it was last night ) Bliss was not the predominant emotion I experienced, rather a very profound connection to 'George' through this compelling and for me utterly moving film.

Not thank God, because I stammer (and the film leaves one in no doubt about the pain of this affliction), but because of that crippling Fear that he exuded throughout, especially at moments where he was required to Speak.

I was left wondering a great deal about why I do not write, about why I only blog occasionally. I read prolifically, blogs included and am seemingly surrounded by the erudite the witty and the wise, in much the same way that Bertie is surrounded by the socially confident.

Many people are telling him to 'spit it out' - to relax, and I think of the good number of friends and other well-wishers who have said 'You Must write - there is so much that you have to say that needs to be heard'.

. . . but, like Bertie, I too am afraid. For him it was the performance of words written by others. (It is noticeable how the two Speeches which bookend the film are not his own words, his own voice. There is a Glorious moment in Westminster Abbey with Lionel, in which he shouts out 'because I have a voice!'. . . and one was left thinking whether part of his difficulty was rooted in his life circumstance that from birth he was living a life in which he had no say - he was speaking that which was required of him). Whereas for me the Fear is of the Performance of my own words, my own voice.

Or is it?

Am I like Bertie, afraid of my own shadow?
How much is writing, Life?
Or is it rather a half life?

Is this avoidance of writing, of publishing really 'fleeing from Life', as someone once suggested? Is the significance of Life to be measured in words written when The Life wrote nothing, yet Writ Large?

Or is it a sense that deep down I have my own Story, my own Voice which must be Enacted rather than written?

I am very conscious of how carefully I edit my words, of how many times I check drafts before hitting 'PUBLISH POST' - like Bertie's cripplingly painful pause before getting a word out . . .

Yet when I 'walk down into the street' - there is no pause. there is no quest for perfectionism, all there Is is Life. There I can Breathe.