If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. WILLIAM BLAKE - Aldous Huxley

The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity.

Indifference is a form of sloth. For one can work hard, as I've always done, and yet wallow in sloth; be industrious about one's job, but scandalously lazy about all that isn't the job. Because, of course, the job is fun. Whereas the non-job — -personal relations, in my case — -is disagreeable and laborious.

One unscrupulous distortion of the truth tends to beget other and opposite distortions.