Svetlana had pointed out that, if I actually listened to other people, instead of worrying so much about what I was going to say, I would notice that everyone was saying all kinds of antisocial, ignorant, or irrelevant things, which were often just a posture they were trying out, as opposed to a reflection of their essential personality, which was probably a thing that didn’t even exist. I hadn’t believed her, but she was right: nobody was actually answering anything anyone else had said, and people were constantly betraying antisocial ideas.
