Remember, remember, I’d tell myself, whatever power this job provides is an illusion.

Remember, remember, I’d say, when you get thrown back into who you are, you’d better have something there.

Another lesson: I had to remember to quit before I got fired. I didn’t want to become a Japanese soldier-holdout in the fifties, hiding on a Polynesian island, believing I was still fighting the war. I also knew this was an entitled approach to working life I couldn’t afford; I was no aristocrat, but I could be an aristocrat of the spirit, at least in theory. I could try to transfigure myself into that mind-set, maybe somewhat. I wanted to write. I started working on a novel.

Writers take an idea, and they make a world out of it. They dream up a different drama. This seemed important. It wasn’t power if you’d been granted it through someone else. You had to create your own power, your own stage, and, if I may say, your own reality.

The mind must be free and incoercible. Only when the mind is free can you live your life as if something is at stake.