The World Is A More Engaging And

Cynicism Makes You Feel Smart, I Know It, Even When You Aren't Smart.

Very Early You Come To The Realization That Nothing Will Ever Take You Away From Yourself.

Construed As Turf, Home Just Seems A Provisional Claim, A Designation You Make Upon A Place, Not One It Makes On You. A Certain Set Of Buildings, A Glimpsed, Smudged Window-view Across A Schoolyard, A Musty Aroma Sniffed Behind A Garage When You Were A Child, All Of Which Come Crowding In Upon Your Latter-day Senses -- Those Are Pungent Things And Vivid, Even Consoling. But To Me They Are Also Inert And Nostalgic And Unlikely To Connect You To The Real, To That Essence Art Can Sometimes Achieve, Which Is Permanence.

Until You Can Become Accountable To Yourself And Only Yourself, You're Probably Not Going To Live A Fully Vital Life. So Much Of Literature Is About Accountability. The Moral Issues In Most Novels Are About People Becoming Responsible For Their Own Behaviour. One Of The Forces Against Being Responsible For Your Own Behaviour Is The Force Of The Past, In The Way That The Past Tries To Form You.

They May Already Know Too Much About Their Mother And Father--nothing Being More Factual Than Divorce, Where So Much Has To Be Explained And Worked Through Intelligently (though They Have Tried To Stay Equable). I've Noticed This Is Often The Time When Children Begin Calling Their Parents By Their First Names, Becoming Little Ironists After Their Parents' Faults. What Could Be Lonelier For A Parent Than To Be Criticized By His Child On A First-name Basis?