If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen.
If I have not been exposed and am not in any danger of pursuit. But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuer that does not readily let go.
I gravitate toward the larger worldview questions such as, Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? What does it mean to know another person? To love someone? Of course, those questions are sort of in the background as I'm playing with language in the foreground, but those are the informing questions.
"Understand the process of the ego. How does the ego live? The ego lives in the tension between what you are and what you want to be. A wants to be B - the ego is created out of this very tension. How does the ego die? The ego dies by you accepting what you are. That you say, "I am fine as I am, where I am is good. I will remain just as existence keeps me. Its will is my will."
I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious." "Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense." "Nobody ever does.
when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.