I imagine I have not gone further inside my own self than many philosophers. But they were looking for truth, something that they imagined would be in their heart of hearts if they dug deeply and earnestly enough. I was looking for a way back out. To live in a house full of mirrors — some cracked, most distorted — is to get to see an awful lot of yourself, and every little defect, every little wrinkle shows itself if you live there long enough. When everywhere you look, it is only you staring back, you want to disavow yourself, to escape your own skin, to be invisible. I have learned things about myself that I never wanted to know. Thoughts and dreams I from which I could not escape. I was not a person; I was only the figment of my own imagination.
When you emerge from a house full of mirrors, take your first breath of air, the birth is a painful one. It is difficult to communicate with people; you struggle for something to say when before, the slightest movement provoked a reaction from the mirrors around you. They don't know you. They cannot look into your head and know what you're thinking, not like the reflections you have lived with so long. You make do with speaking words that only half fit what you intend to say. But slowly, you adapt. You get used to language, you get used to being a person again.... I cannot say, now, that I miss that life of mad solitude, but you take what you can get in this life, in this world, and it is your job to make something of it. I remember what I have seen. I know what I am.
