An out of context excerpt

I’m writing a new book.

I told Randolph this morning that I need to remember how young it still is. How little of it I’ve really solidified, how much of it will still change.

But I love certain parts of it, the parts that move me, the parts that I know, all the same, might get cut before all is said and done.

This is a part I’d like to keep. I’m posting it here just in case it’s not strong enough, or just as bad: too strong. I’m posting it so I can read it whenever I want. I’m posting it so you can read it too. It’s the first part of the book I’ve shared with the world at large.

I’m not contextualizing this excerpt in reference to the plot or who’s speaking. At this stage, I know it doesn’t matter.

From Conjoined States:

Yet we each resist it. I resist it. And I try to support my resistance. Self-reliance, said Emerson. Self-sufficiency. Self-importance. No man is an island, said John Donne. But sometimes, men masquerade as cities, harboring fortunes of knowledge, courage, insight, and compassion. And, along with these, apathy, disgust, superiority, and fear. Just like any city, every man is the sum of his parts. So polarized, depending on the day—I love Cleveland. I hate Cleveland. Both sentiments could come from one person on one day in one breath. I love my parents. I hate my parents. For independence, we forsake what we know. Familiarity falls away in pieces. We plant our feet, trying to conjoin what’s left, trying to reassemble the resemblance between what we thought we knew and what has come to be.