that for most of my life I had been emulating the thoughts and actions of other people. That so much that I had done or said had been a mirror of what was done and said around me. And that if I continued in this manner, whatever glimmers of brilliant life still burned in me would soon go out. When I was very young it had been otherwise, but I could hardly recall that time, it was buried so far below. I was only certain that a period had existed in which I looked at the things of the world without needing to make them subordinate to order. I simply saw, with whatever originality I was born
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