I am not merely one identifiable person. Yes, I have fingerprints, but do they really tell even a fraction of my story? How could they, for I am a many-faceted personality assuming a variety of masks depending on the particular circumstances with which I am confronted at a particular moment? When I am writing in this notebook I am seldom the good-natured, easy-going fellow most of my acquaintances take me for. Instead I am frequently a disgruntled ax-wielding executioner lashing out at a certain individual or idea that I find intolerably irritating. Then along comes a striking poetic image and I am compelled to shed my vindictive mask and assume one which enhances my sprint after a different kind of justice, though one whose source is no less subjective than the other. I like to think of all my endeavors as quests for truth, that essential truth which lies at the core of all existence. As a truth-seeker perpetually on the prowl nothing I do is without it own justification.

A constant flow of self-assurances is necessary in order to keep oneself going in the face of repeated failures and disappointments.

The ability to get along in the world stems from an altogether different source than that from which the artist draws his sustenance. The artist understands this only too well, but, unfortunately, those who inhabit the vast territories surrounding his private demesne are conspicuously blind to it.

There are times when I feel myself falling into the habit of obnoxious thoughts, thoughts which are downright harmful to my desired mode of life because if they are allowed to continue unchecked they will eventually become acts.

I had thought myself safely beyond condemnation or praise from my friends. I was convinced that nothing which was said about me could make a deep impression on my mind or hurt my feelings even temporarily. Now it is suddenly brought home to me that I have overrated my imperviousness, for I find myself quite perturbed by the endless critical negations being poured upon my head by somone I counted as a friend. I am not feverishly upset but genuinely angered to such a degree that my attachment to this person has entered a state of jeopardy.

Whenever I want to write about people I often find it impossible to do so unless I am angry at them. For example, while I was riding home today on the train I felt a furious urge to castigate someone in the pages of my notebook. Now seated at the kitchen table following my arrival and a late supper snack I am not only unable to recapture my former petulant mood but have completely forgotten exactly who it was I wanted to attack.

I have never been able to explain to myself why it is that I am uneasy and always on my guard against committing some indescretion when in the presence of certain people while with others I am as much my natural ignorant self as is humanly possible. Eventually those who tend to make me cautious irritate me. If they inadvertently build dikes against a free flow of ideas my interest in them will invariably dry up.

There is an inevitableness about our lives which cannot be avoided by indulging ourselves in either our own diversions or those contrived for us by others. But what really bothers me is the senseless waste of energy one must exert in order to parry the interlopers.

I am inclined to believe that people who are more than slightly acquainted with other people never judge the latter by what they are doing except insofar as it represents what they actually are characterwise. Regardless of how great an artist might be, his art is never the basis for liking or disliking him personally. Friends demand a real human being, not a piece of bronze on a pedestal. However, when posterity takes an interest in a poet’s life it stems from its admiration for his poetry. The fact that he was a scoundrel to his wife and friends will have little or no effect on the enthusiasm aroused by his poetry. Among his contemporaries, i.e., those who were closely associated with him, the badness or goodness of his character was a mark by which he was identified. Those who loved him only through an acquaintance with his poetry never came close enough to him physically to be bruised by his personality. How much more tolerant we are of people whom we know only through their books.

It is not that I am secretly envious of the hermit, but merely that I want to be the master of a sufficient amount of my time to allow for a thorough development of my own ideas. Nothing can be more detrimental to this wish than a prevailing danger of sudden intrusions.

Our moods affect our reactions to our various acquaintances. This is certainly true when we are thinking or writing about them in a place far removed from their presence. I find my attitude towards certain people so changeable that it is virtually impossible for me to form a consistent picture of them in my mind. D., for example, puzzles me to no end even though our antipathic views of life have merged into a mutually congenial relationship, so much so, in fact, that I have all but ceased to write about her. I find her sense of reason so strongly affected by her determination to hold on to her personal possessions that I sometimes doubt the existence of any capacity within her for a purely generous act. Her social consciousness is practically nil. Nevertheless, because I feel close to her, I have noticed tendencies in her nature which I could hardly have been aware of in others and therefore I wonder whether she is basically really different than anyone else. My nearness to her causes me to exaggerate her character traits. My complaint is aimed at her instinct for survival, which is an irresistible tendency in all of us. Motives which others thoughtlessly castigate us for because they appear to be rooted in our selfishness are in truth branches of the same tree. Each of us approaches life from a different angle, envisioning different goals which we hope eventually to attain. And rarely are our eyes diverted from our particular goal. It is this constancy of desire for fulfillment, even when it is confined to our subconscious mind, which makes one appear selfish in the eyes of someone else, whose desire for fulfillment is altogether different. The fact that each man pursues his own ends with varying capacities for compromise should be sufficient to temper the harshness with which we judge the actions of our fellowmen.

I seem to have so much to do and, unfortunately, not an awful lot of willingness to do it.

Every man is entitled to his own special attachments. One man may prefer the company of an animal, another an automobile, and still another, a book. Beyond the need for food, sleep and shelter there is little within the sphere of desires that can be said to belong to all men alike.

My dissatisfaction with myself flows more from a feeling of impatience than from a logical rationale concerning my lack of motivation for work. What gets done is accomplished not in one clean sweep, but by working at it when infused with short spurts of energy and interest day by day. My nature is steadfastness rather than alacrity.
*
It is a joy as unique as any I know to suddenly comprehend a subject which you had thought forever wrapped in the vapor of mystification. Those who discount simplifications are incapable of reaching the Himalayan peaks of general truths.
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Once a project is undertaken it becomes a struggle for me to persist in it simply because I am inclined to look to every diverting interruption as a godsend.
*
There is always the danger of justifying ourselves at the expense of others. To ourselves we seem always to be in the right. And when this attitude becomes a habit it may also become a label designating us as immature. Thus the ability to carefully weigh our opponents’ actions and arguments is an indication of how mature we really are.
*
It is admiration for the intellect rather than the heart that will eventually destroy mankind.
*
As I read over what I wrote yesterday I feel an uneasiness in my conscience. Better I had said before I wrote anything down , “Beware of your opinions!” If I can find no grounds for reputing the facts I related perhaps I should at least feel a sense of shame at the tone in which they were conveyed.
*
In his autobiography Ernest Toller reminds us that we have always been more deeply moved by misery than beauty. Contrast this thought with Nietzsche’s “appearance is everything”, or have I missed the philosopher’s profounder implication?
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It is only in our enthusiasms and uncompromising moments that the so-called genius shines through to the extent that its light falls with some effect on others. ???????????????The wisdom is in the style can glow only from the powerful persuasions of an inner fire.????????
*
When Virginia Woolf writes that she is little persuaded of the truth of anything I want to reach out and shake her hand, for I feel there is a certain depth of vision which we share. It is not a disbelief in ultimate truth, but in man’s ability, because of his constitutional inhibitions, to design a positive pattern of purposes for himself.
*
Again it is my failure to follow my strongest impulses that troubles me most. I have too many obligations in which I am only half-heartedly interested.
*
What lies behind me may be beginning to take on a definite characteristic shape, nevertheless the shape is far from complete. Much lies ahead of me. There are vast blank areas which I must fill, and yet where will I find enough significant material to satisfy the demands of these empty spaces? The embryo merely shows signs of forming. It will not only take a long time to mature but also much good fortune on my part before it achieves a discernible identity.
*
I derive a certain amount of pleasure from the company of most people. If I have any regrets about spending time with them, because I would rather be reading or writing, I am never conscious of being ill-at-ease in their presence except on very rare occasions when they bore me with their conversation. It is after they have left me or before they arrive that the unhappy pressure of their intrusion weighs most heavily on my conscience.
*
I am hardly capable any longer of becoming excited over social evils such as our journalistic headlines expose. Often the individual items are indicative of some larger tendency which is truly in need of correction, yet almost never is there any public attempt to deal with the culprit behind the scenes. Although not supercilious by nature I am tempted to smile up my sleeve at the heated discussions which these issues elicit.
*
Intrusions are becoming more and more unavoidable and may eventually drive me into a deeper hermitism. However, I know myself well enough to realize that it would be difficult for me to metamorphose into a cantankerous isolationist. Yet there are depths of concealment which at times do tempt my soul. Pascal once said something to the effect that all a man’s troubles come from his not being left alone for long enough periods of time. One must sulk in solitude. But perhaps a truly private life even in rural America has become impossible. I sometimes feel that other people have no authenic importance for me beyond the books they write.

G. is a special case of course. There is at least one side of him to which I am attracted. The other side of him irritates me primarily because I find it boring. He is an example of a person who is intelligent and yet has no mind. Nevertheless I like him because he has not disappointed me by providing me with his version of intellectual companionship, a type of association for which I have no desire. He is a man who, unlike the vast majority of men, rises above his usual self when he assumes the role of an artist. My main peeve against him stems from his whining self-pity, his unrelenting obsession with what he imagines as his insecurity and his insistence on my being an always-available ear for his complaints. Hours and hours are spent, and I cannot help but think of them as wasted, in which I am chained to his monotonously repetitious moaning. If I am eventually driven away from him it will be because he has imposed upon so much of my valuable time filling it with a vacuum of his dissatisfactions.
*
I must have more time to satisfy my appetites without living in constant apprehension of someone bursting into the room and telling me how many of his own desires are being sacrificed for the sake of my poems.
*
Everyday I am astounded by new discoveries. My whole life has been spent in a state of astonishment at the revelations unveiled to me by my fellow earthdwellers. Their capacity for delusion is no more amazing than their passion for indulging themselves in all that their gullibility can absorb. Admittedly I am often depressed by the large amounts of energy and time devoted to what I regard as insignificant, yet I also must acknowledge the fact that out of all this predominately pointless activity comes certain sublime surprises. And these cannot be casually shrugged off. They frequently give to human life a meaning which transcends the boundaries of reason.
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Sometimes I suspect that writing in this notebook is nothing more than a compromise. Yet theoretically, at least, I would like to think of it as a kind of bridge which enables me to pass from the prosaic to the sublime, from the dutifully mundane to the poetic. When Virginia Woolf says she is elated at having incorporated some of her most precious ideas into her work without having spoiled the organic whole I feel that I understand her pleasure. She insists these ideas appear to have merely slipped in, as though a place had been left open for them. Obscurity, complexity and depth are often closely related to each other. Simplifications carry with them the tone of finality which frequently emanates from simple minds, minds incapable of probing psychic depths. Intellectual humility and intelligence are synonymous. Keats once wrote, “The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing–to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.”
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