wooow i already know i will be coming back to this essay

To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.

snatchingly good.

the amount of grounding-ness this piece gave me- the power of writing that cuts through differences in time / space and communicate in the same conceived manner the exact information- honestly trivial but floored by that.

Every people pleaser must read this essay

Эссе о том, что как ни принимай позу уверенного человека, пока себя по-настоящему уважать не будешь, спать спокойно не получится. А самоуважение это выбор порой неприятных, тяжелых и вообще невеселых опций. Ну и ответственность

"To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference."
- Once again, Didion captivates me in the beginning and at the end but hits a midpoint lull.

Just some parts that I liked:

"To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference."

"If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us."

هیاهوی بسیار برای هیچ.

i’m underwhelmed

elle a vrm dit « rien a foutre de ta depression »

i have thoughts!!!!

It’s just an essay, hence the quickness. Key takeaways (from someone who could do with more self-respect):

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life = source of which self-respect springs.

Curiously determined to live out their false notions of us (talking about people with no self-respect being in thrall to everyone we see)

At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun…

Unsure why Didion had to include the stuff about Indians intruding and being hostile? Ig white women will white women in 1961. Did you see the white man in America who recently chopped up this young black girl?