Miles

“I did want to become a better person. That was the whole point. Become better, become stronger – all very worthy, I suppose, but also a little vague. How do you know when you’ve become better? It’s not like going to college for four years and being handed a diploma to prove you’ve passed all your courses. There’s no way to measure your progress. So I kept at it, not knowing if I was better or not, not knowing if I was stronger or not, and after a while I stopped thinking about the goal and concentrated on the effort. (Pause. Another sip of wine.) Does any of this make sense to you? I became addicted to the struggle. I lost track of myself. I kept on doing it, but I didn’t know why I was doing it anymore.”

 

P.Auster. Sunset Park, p. 263