Persona

Quote of the now:

"I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one".

From Persona by Ingmar Bergman.

I talked to somebody today who I had not talked too for a long time. I didn't massively want to, but now I am stuck with him for at least another two weeks.

The little turns that life takes never cease to amaze me. I feel like Golyadkin in Dostoyevsky's The Double. After shutting myself in for so long, life trickles in, like water, and all I can do is react.

Very odd.