Between the World and Me

ago—the craft of writing as the art of thinking.

The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.

I was coming to enjoy the dizziness, the vertigo that must come with any odyssey. But in those early moments, the unceasing

It was always right in front of me. The fear was there in the extravagant boys of my neighborhood, in their large rings and medallions, their big puffy coats and full-length fur-collared leathers, which was their armor against their world.

gasoline.

I wanted you to claim the whole world, as it is. I wanted “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus” to immediately be obvious to you.

The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs.

because these laws were essential to the security of my body.

They were bound because they suffered under the weight of the Dream, and they were bound by all the beautiful things, all the language and mannerisms, all the food and music, all the literature and philosophy, all the common language that they fashioned like diamonds under the weight of the Dream.

largely the result of enjoying an abnormal amount of security in your black body.