Sarah

“I felt shame when excluded, like I'd been singled out for this unique punishment, and I didn't know what I'd done to deserve it. But my shame's twin was my self-righteous repulsion for able-bodied people who did not see me as real, who did not try, who were more comfortable holding me at a distance from real life. In the Republic, Plato separates people into classes, the highest of which are the philosophers, whose obsession with the futile work of narrowing the separation between experience and truth was what made them noble. Through Plato's lens, I could choose to resee my separation from others as a badge of honor. I could twist this theory into the shape of a shield. Not being of the world was precisely what made me better, wiser, a philosopher, my soul gold and the others' iron. These theories contained in them a superiority, and once I embraced it, it kept me aloft, saved me from further descent.
Judgment became a powerful antidote to despair. I thought: If I must exist at a distance, let it be from above.”
― Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty