The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
Apparently this combination of ability and blindness is a symptom exclusive to the autodidact. Deprived of the steady guiding hand that any good education provides, the autodidact possesses nonetheless the gift of freedom and conciseness of thought, where official discourse would put up barriers and prohibit adventure.
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Tea and mangas instead of coffee and newspapers: something elegant and enchanting, instead of adult power struggles and their sad aggressiveness.
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Lastly, teenagers think they’re adults when in fact they’re imitating adults who never really made it into adulthood and who are running away from life. It’s pathetic.
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What is this war we are waging, when defeat is so certain? Day after day, already wearied by the constant onslaught, we face our terror of the everyday, the endless passageway that, in the end—because we have spent so much time walking to and fro between its walls—will become a destiny. Yes, my angel, that is our everyday existence: dreary, empty, and mired deep in troubles. The pathways of hell are hardly foreign; we shall end up there one day if we tarry too long. From a passageway to a pathway: it is an easy fall, without shock or surprises. Every day we are reacquainted with the sadness of the passageway and step by step we clear the path toward our mournful doom.
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I sat down 4 times and got up again 4 times which explains why at present I am standing up and do not know what to do.
Sit down, perhaps.