I took K.J. Bishop's _The Etched City_ to Hawaii with me for some light reading. I didn't actually get much reading done (too much adventuring), so I've been catching up on the reading since I got home. K.J. Bishop is the writer who introduced me to the Andre Gide quote that became one of my mantras. (It's on my bio page.) I had forgotten the exotic fruit of her book. A perfect accompaniment to volcanic adventures.
Last night I came across this section of the story, which reminded me of Douglas Hofstadter's _I am a strange loop_.
At that moment, he realised that he did not exist to her in the same way that he existed in his own perception. She held a copied version, an interpretation of him, filtered through the matrix of her priorities and desires.
Therefore, surely, he only held a copy of her.
and this, which reminded me a bit of personal branding and self-development
"I have come to believe that we steer our individual spheres of being through the spectra of possible worlds via the choices we make, the acts we perform. Most people stick to known routes, and therefor cannot travel far. They live too modestly, and perhaps too privately. Only by being strange can we move, for strange acts cause us to be rejected by whatever normality we have offended, and to be propelled towards a normality that can better accommodate us."
It's a good book and makes me think about things. Roll the words around in my head and suck on them to get the juice out. And then go back for another piece.
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