Status Updates From Notes of a Native Son

An interesting collection of essays. Notes was my favorite. about half I cannot relate to, but that doesn’t mean the writing is bad so I’m leaving it unrated.

They preferred the invention because this invention expressed & corroborated their hates & fears so perfectly. It’s just as well to remember that people are always doing this.

But one’s first … impression of plenty was countered immediately by an impression of waste. None of this was doing anybody any good. It would have been better to have left the plate glass as it had been & the goods lying in the stores.

“I had told my mother that I did not want to see him because I hated him. But this was not true. It was only that I had hated him and I wanted to hold onto this hatred. I did not want to look on him as a ruin: it was not a ruin I had hated. I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.”