Just read a passage in the foreword to "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams:
In fact, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them.
...If there exists any area in which a man can rise above his moral condition, imposed upon him at birth, and long before birth, by the nature of his breed, then I think it is only a willingness to know it, to face its existence in him, and I think that, at least below the conscious level, we all face it.
Talked to Mi'er for a really long time today and part of it was about all the things I'm scared of, particularly other people. Now I wonder if... instead of training to be thick-skinned or always trying to improve myself and trying to measure up in the eyes of other people... perhaps the answer lies simply in the word ACCEPT.
There has to be a certain improvement of things, in every matter... but sometimes, I think, there is a time to be content with the mere "willingness to know [one's own flaws], to face its existence". More importantly, it is due to flaws that I can try for something much more important to me: UNDERSTANDING. It lends me to something that I prize equally highly: my ability to write and do literature, to connect with people and emotions.
If this is the exchange needed, then I am, in retrospect, perfectly happy with all these flaws already in existence. All what I would require would be an awareness of them.
In fact, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them.
...If there exists any area in which a man can rise above his moral condition, imposed upon him at birth, and long before birth, by the nature of his breed, then I think it is only a willingness to know it, to face its existence in him, and I think that, at least below the conscious level, we all face it.
Talked to Mi'er for a really long time today and part of it was about all the things I'm scared of, particularly other people. Now I wonder if... instead of training to be thick-skinned or always trying to improve myself and trying to measure up in the eyes of other people... perhaps the answer lies simply in the word ACCEPT.
There has to be a certain improvement of things, in every matter... but sometimes, I think, there is a time to be content with the mere "willingness to know [one's own flaws], to face its existence". More importantly, it is due to flaws that I can try for something much more important to me: UNDERSTANDING. It lends me to something that I prize equally highly: my ability to write and do literature, to connect with people and emotions.
If this is the exchange needed, then I am, in retrospect, perfectly happy with all these flaws already in existence. All what I would require would be an awareness of them.
posted by Ling at
7:47 PM
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