fragments of scar tissue

fragments of Scar Tissue

i just finished this book Scar Tissue by Micheal Ignatieff, it has some amazing writing in it.


What is the word for such ruthless elegance? grace. but what is grace nut self-forgetting?

As my wife would say, taking my arms and folding me in upon herself,dance. just dance. bit i never could . . . just . . . dance.

of course i was depressed. i knew that. of course i took medication, the last of my mothers green pills, what else? it was amazing how they slowed you down, how everything drained away to nothingness when you were on them, how you stared and stared, feeling nothing, not even aware of oblivion. i finished everyone of them.and i kept writing, now training these manic moments of self awareness on depression itself. i wondered at my own strange exaltaion, why i took such feirce pride in my state of mind, why i held onto my depression with both hands and could not be pried loose.

the individualation of the adult life is haunted by a preconscious memory of a time when we had no selves at all.

there is a subtle yet profound difference between giving up and letting go.
in the windows reflection, the frames of my half glasses glint. my eyes have disappeared. my cheekbones catch the lamp glow. i have always had the feeling that i don't really know hwat i look like; everyone else, yes, but not me. but just now, beneath the flat surface of my own reflection, i see the shadows of two former faces hovering behind the outlines of my jaw, my eye, and my forehead. now at last, as i look at the night reflections in the glass, i see mother, father, the faces of the dead.what was mine? what was the margin beyond inheritance? my wife belives that i wasted my life on these questions. i did not so much life my life as spend it wondering whether any of it was really mine. just live, she always said, just live as if it was the most natural thing in the world. and she did, with the grace of a born dancer. now with the anaesthetic taken hold, now that i feel so little, i can listen without pain as she says to me once more, looking up at the stars that night in august, ' what do you need to name them for? '

sanity is finely poised.

does understanding anything make a difference, if there is nothing you can do to stop it happening? an excellent question.

I feel life calling me from the desk, i feel it bid me rise and walk out into the streets. the night is warm. my feet are bare and the sidewalks will be dry and warm under my toes.