this quote was largely definitive of the depressive episode i had in sophomore year, when i was experiencing capitalist alienation from my passions and career for the first time.

• normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it - ellen goodman

this quote is currently definitive of the spiral i had this year, when i realized that none of my marginalized identities are readily applicable for survival in postcolonial society.

• you’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. you live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. it is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretences of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. in that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. that’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world - octave mirbeau