The journal was—and remains—a long argument with myself: a lucid voice questioning judiciously, and a more forceful voice speaking defiantly, sometimes in reply, other times in digression. The experience is like a confrontation between George Eliot and Dostoyevsky. The former counsels self-restraint through self-improvement, and the latter interrupts with monologues on impassioned and imprisoned souls; when the latter strives to be coherent or even sincere, the effort, under the gaze of the former, seems ludicrous. One always knows how best to sabotage one’s own life.
