Home > Work > Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person
1 " You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me. "
― Hugh Prather , Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person
2 " It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light. "
3 " Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly? "
4 " I also sense that I am misusing the idea of being real whenever I discover myself anxiously weight my words and actions, that is, whenever I am being careful to be "real". When I do this I am only playing a new role - the role of the "real person". Calculation does not enter into being real. Concerns with appearances does not enter into it. Being real is more of a process of letting go then it is the effort of becoming. I don't really have to become me, although at times it feels this way - I am already me. And that is both the easiest and the hardest thing for me to realise. "
5 " All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself. "
6 " If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write "
7 " I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now. "
8 " perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown. "
9 " Don't strive for love, be it. "
10 " Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser? "
11 " I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet. "
12 " What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't. "
13 " I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel. "
14 " Today I don't want to live for, I want to live. "
15 " What I must do is die now. I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life - longer than many, better than most. Tony died when he was twenty. I have had thirty-two years. I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. I am me - that is a miracle. I had no right to a single hour. And yet I have had thirty-two years. Few can choose when they will die. I choose to accept death now. As of this moment I give up my "right" to live. "
16 " Perfectionism is a slow death....If everything were to turn out just as I would want it, just as I would plan, I would never experience anything new. My life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. When I make a mistake I experience something unexpected. "
17 " There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me. "
18 " Next time I will ...""From now on I will ..."- What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow? "
19 " What I want are words that reflect my heart, not my cleverness. "
20 " Selfishness is neither good nor bad—it depends on the way we are selfish as to whether it nourishes or injures. "
