Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

~ Joan Didion from, https://www.vogue.com/article/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961

Aside from this being the first time I’ve linked to Vogue… I’d like to turn a phrase or two like that at some point. But unfortunately, me no write that purty. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sometimes I read things that I really feel I resonate with. I’m honestly not sure if I agree with her—specifically in this essay or in her writing in general. But this grabbed me and so, share I shall.

ɕ