My library is an archive of longings. - Susan Sontag

لا شيء غامض، لا علاقة بشريّة غامضة على الإطلاق. عدا الحب.

Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.

Somewhere, some place inside myself, I am detached. I have always been detached (in part). Always.