nick

The first hard choice

You must spend your life walking through fields of lotuses, listening to the beautiful music of the sirens.

Always, you could come closer to the sirens, and risk destroying yourself.

Always, you could eat more of the lotus, and you could choose to abandon what matters.

This is the first hard choice. You must choose to be the kind

I am susceptible to frivolity. I know this about myself. I love beauty; I am weak to surfaces; I am apt to mistake eccentricity for character. I drink more than I should. I love overdressing; I love staying up past midnight; I love breakfasts at all-night diners, and the Irish coffees you order when you can’t decide whether it’s night or morning.

Emotions are not reactions to the world. You are not a passive receiver of sensory input but an active constructor of your emotions.