In this situation I’m a representative.
A martyr. Imprisoned, unable to grow. At the mercy of this resentment, this hateful millstone of envy of the Calibans of this world. Because they all hate us, they hate us for being different, for not being them, for their own not being like us. They persecute us, they crowd at us, they send us to Coventry, they sneer at us, they yawn at us, they blindfold themselves and stuff up their ears. They do anything to avoid having to take notice of us and respect us. They go crawling after the great ones among us when they’re dead. They pay thousands and thousands for Van Goghs and Modiglianis they’d have spat on at the time they were painted.
I hate them.
I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and the mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren’t ashamed of being dull and little. I hate what G.P. calls the New People, the new-class people with their cars and their money and their tellies and their stupid vulgarities and their stupid crawling imitation of the bourgeoisie.
I love honesty and freedom and giving. I love making, I love doing, I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart. […]
I know we’re supposed to face the herd, control the stampede – it’s like a Wild West film. Work for them and tolerate them. I shall never go to the Ivory Tower, that’s the most despicable thing, to choose to leave life because it doesn’t suit you. But sometimes it is frightening, thinking of the struggle life is if one takes it seriously.
– John Fowles, ‘The Collector’.
Credits:
Header photograph of woman – Bert Geens.