The dark confines of a stranger's mind.

The more I explore neurosis the more I become aware that it is a modern form of romanticism. It stems from the same source, a hunger for perfection, an obsession with living out what one has imagined, and if it is found to be illusory, a rejection of reality, the power to imagine and not to sustain one's endurance, and then the creative force turned into destruction. Many of the romantics destroyed themselves because they could not attain the absolute, in love or creation. They could not attain it because it was invented. It was a myth. The neurotic acts in the same way. He sets himself impossible goals, imaginary goals. He will win the respect and admiration of a parent who is not even alive any more (appealing to his substitutes). He will gain the love of the world by giving the world something it may not want. He will seek union with opposites, perverse contrary relationships with those who turn away. He will seek to conquer the unconquerable.

there is a level of seduction that exists beyond the body. something less tangible, and perhaps more potent. anais nin understood this idea about how desire does not begin with touch but with language, perception, and the sharp electric pull of a mind that challenges and excites you. in her journals, desire is not just a physical hunger but a hunger of the intellect, an unraveling of thought before an unraveling of the body. to be drawn into someone’s mind, to feel their thoughts press against your own, can be more intoxicating than any physical closeness.

"I watched life and wanted to be a part of it but found it painfully difficult."