Sunday

Alain De Botton says that small things get in the way of us realising our authentic selves. And that's really it, isn't it? That's the whole thing right there. The denial of the authentic self. And yet even denial is the wrong word. Robbed is the right word but the question is why we let such small things rob (a word that suggests a significant act of which we should probably be aware) us of massively big things that we should be protecting and holding on to at pretty much any cost. Actually we are, all of us, rarely strong enough to stop our authentic selves slipping away and the fact is that we're painfully aware...and then we try to deal with the repercussions of that for the rest of our lives. It's the fodder for absolutely everything: I promise to commit no acts of violence, either physical or otherwise if things come alive.