Tagged: identity

On Joining the Party

The danger of political identity.— The moment one begins to identify oneself with a party, movement, or faction, one has also begun to shift one’s intellectual center of gravity from the solid ground of the mind’s own observations and perceived needs to the anxious and ever-shifting social imperatives of remaining a partisan in good standing, imperatives that perforce become increasingly compelling and emotionally...

Identifications

I live in a world they will never care to understand. They live in a world I wish I could not understand.

I have no memory of ever having felt lonely while alone — but many memories of feeling lonely in company.

I have always disliked myself most….

Learning to Read

One path of a good reader, perhaps the most common modern path:

1. Find depth of meaning in the mediocre books of youth, which usually means the popular books deemed serious in your time, or among those of your “type.”
2. Realize that one’s “found” meaning was in fact deeper than the thoughts of one’s favorite authors, which in effect…