The fact is that in us all lurks an existential terror, a powerful and altogether natural resistance to what - seemingly - amounts to sudden death and annihilation. All that long-drawn-out and often agonizing effort, urged on by every kind of social pressure, to paper over the void within and to build on it a somebody right here, a face that belongs to oneself (instead of to everyone else), a distinct personality of one’s very own, a stable character to match up to those around us - and now (God help us!) it’s being exposed as not just a collapsing card-castle but (to the degree that it stands
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