On a second, closer read this does not hold up. The central idea of the essay is not that bright, it doesn't warrant the racism (nothing does.) but it also isn't old enough or great enough to skip. She wants you to practice self-respect and makes no effort in making it a collective issue, Didion is rarely concerned with community or tangible history. Afterall self-respect comes naturally to people like Didion, the people who have their house "infiltrated" by the fortunately "not hostile" Indians. You can't possibly read this essay posed as philosophical and objective and ignore the settler colonial basis that this is entirely based on.

Yum

It is simply one of my favorite pieces of writing ever. The number of times I come back to this essay is just insane. I always have my post it notes filled with excerpts from this essay all over my room. Thanks to Joan Didion every day for existing and for writing.

"It is the phenomenon sometimes called alienation from self. In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the spectre of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that one's sanity becomes an object of speculation among one's acquaintances. "