Shaun Culwell

“With regard to “unimagined affection,” I confess that I am one of those people who, in a deep and secret place, can never imagine why anyone would actually like them. Respect maybe, or even appreciate, but not really care for. This psychology (or psychosis, or neurosis) is not about self-esteem or pride, for most people seem to possess sufficient reserves of those qualities, or some facsimile thereof, but it is more a sense of one’s ineptitude in the social graces, a perceived “disability” in what seemed to be the normal social routines of being charming, funny, entertaining, and forthcoming with another person. This existential discomfort causes more social awkwardness than the contrary self-image (as evinced by one friend of mine who, in that same deep and secret place, can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t like him). And for those of us who feel deficient in such socially valued qualities, it can also be that the effort of opening ourselves up to another is so difficult we’re willing to at least attempt the operation in close relationships, but not for casual encounters. That part of me remained the same, it seemed, but I had learned that it could be worthwhile to try to give yourself to others. They had certainly given themselves to me. Even some who had never been that close to me before were moved, and I remembered one former employee of the band’s who I hadn’t seen for years showing up at the House of Mourning and tearfully rambling through a speech that basically expressed what many others must have felt, “I don’t know what to say, but here’s my heart.”
― Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road