Things May Look Different To

It Feels Like Everything's Been Decided In Advance That I'm Following A Path Somebody Else Has Already Mapped Out For Me. It Doesn't Matter How Much I Think Things Over, How Much Effort I Put Into It. In Fact, The Harder I Try, The More I Lose My Sense Of Who I Am. It's Like My Identity's An Orbit That I've Strayed Far Away From, And That Really Hurts. But More Than That, It Scares Me. Just Thinking About It Makes Me Flinch.

This Is One More Piece Of Advice I Have For You: Don't Get Impatient. Even If Things Are So Tangled Up You Can't Do Anything, Don't Get Desperate Or Blow A Fuse And Start Yanking On One Particular Thread Before It's Ready To Come Undone. You Have To Realize It's Going To Be A Long Process And That You'll Work On Things Slowly, One At A Time.

The Best Thing Would Be To Break Your Neck, But You'd Probably Just Break Your Leg And Then You Couldn't Do A Thing. You'd Yell At The Top Of Your Lungs, But Nobody;d Hear You, And You Couldn't Expect Anybody To Find You, And You'd Have Centipedes And Spiders Crawling All Over You, And The Bones Of The Ones Who Died Before Are Scattered All Around You, And It's Dark And Soggy, And Way Overhead There's This Tiny, Tiny Circle Of Light Like A Winter Moon. You Die There In This Place, Little By Little, All By Yourself.

The Sense Of Tragedy - According To Aristotle - Comes, Ironically Enough, Not From The Protagonist's Weak Points But From His Good Qualities. Do You Know What I'm Getting At? People Are Drawn Deeper Into Tragedy Not By Their Defects But By Their Virtues. ... [but] We Accept Irony Through A Device Called Metaphor. And Through That We Grow And Become Deeper Human Beings.

Reading Was Like An Addiction; I Read While I Ate, On The Train, In Bed Until Late At Night, In School, Where I'd Keep The Book Hidden So I Could Read During Class. Before Long I Bought A Small Stereo And Spent All My Time In My Room, Listening To Jazz Records. But I Had Almost No Desire To Talk To Anyone About The Experience I Gained Through Books And Music. I Felt Happy Just Being Me And No One Else. In That Sense I Could Be Called A Stack-up Loner.