christopher hitchens: find your own voice

unspoken truths, at vanity fair.

snip
deprivation of the ability to speak is more like an attack of impotence, or the amputation of part of the personality. to a great degree, in public and private, i “was” my voice. all the rituals and etiquette of conversation, from clearing the throat in preparation for the telling of an extremely long and taxing joke to (in younger days) trying to make my proposals more persuasive as i sank the tone by a strategic octave of shame, were innate and essential to me. i have never been able to sing, but i could once recite poetry and quote prose and was sometimes even asked to do so. and timing is everything: the exquisite moment when one can break in and cap a story, or turn a line for a laugh, or ridicule an opponent. i lived for moments like that. now, if i want to enter a conversation, i have to attract attention in some other way, and live with the awful fact that people are then listening “sympathetically.” at least they don’t have to pay attention for long: i can’t keep it up and anyway can’t stand to.
/snip

if it be your will,
that i speak no more:
and my voice be still,
as it was before...