I was not confident enough to tell him what I myself barely knew, which is that being true to yourself, even if it makes everyone hate you, even if it makes people want to kill you, is the most radical form of liberty, and when you make contact with something as electric and terrifying as the unadorned truth of yourself, it burns away so many other smaller forms of bondage you weren’t even aware of, so you find yourself irradiated and unencumbered. That there is something holy in that kind of stubbornness.
