In every life there is something that remains unlived, just as in every word there is something that remains unexpressed. Character is a mysterious power that proclaims itself the guardian of that untasted life: it stubbornly keeps watch over what has never happened, and without your will it marks its trace upon your face. That is why, right after birth, a child already seems to look like an adult: in reality, nothing connects their faces except for that which in neither has been lived.

Giorgio Agamben, Idea of Prose

***

In order to meet the basic requirements of morality and continuity, we are drawn into a fundamental illusion. It is our character. Something entirely our own, constant, and at the same time unstable and changeable. What can be done with character urges us to make an effort in every situation connected with the functioning of society, especially in social situations, and it is precisely through these repeated efforts that we recreate old routines. We are allowed to believe that in the moments we experience, we have something to win — only so that society itself may live through yet another moment.

Irving Goffman, Interactive Ritual

***

The road leading to the essence of literature passes through the recognition of the fact that allusion works more powerfully than realization. This is linked to the following facts from life:
Children play with very primitive dolls. Why do such dolls speak more strongly to the imagination than beautifully crafted ones? Does it have something to do with the fact that a dog plays with a stone serving as its “prey,” while it doesn’t know what to do with a stuffed hare? Because the hare, in every aspect, is an unrecognizably altered reproduction of the original, whereas the stone differs from it only in one respect — namely, that it can be carried in the mouth. The small size of the doll is what matters most for maternal feelings; it is, in a way, the idea of a small child, from which the abundance of real form only distracts attention.

Robert Musil, The Mathematical Man

***

I want to be the opposite.
Of what — it doesn’t matter.
I want to be the opposite itself,
that alone is the aim.

I turn myself inside out,
hair first,
become my own lining,
break my bones backward,
bend my spine to the other side.

I torment myself,
fight myself,
hunt myself,
haunt myself.

Until at last,
defeated,
I can only become
the opposite of myself.

Not a total triumph, alas.
I wanted to be
the opposite of all —
but I failed.

Anna Świrszczyńska, The Opposite