by Susan Sontag
“Advice for Young Readers” It is also the advice I have given myself for a long time.
The pattern of people’s lives is a track based on how one’s attention has been formed and how it has been warped. Forms of attention are exactly the outcomes of education and culture themselves. People always grow. What increases and elevates one’s attention are the proprieties that people show against alien things. It’s hard to take in new stimuli and to work on it.
Watch for censorship. However don’t forget it –the censorship that lurks in the depth of society and in one’s personal life is, “self”-censorship. Read books a lot. Books filled with something big that awakes pleasure or that deepens you. Keep up your expectations. The books which aren’t worthy of reading twice aren’t worth reading. (By the way, we can say the same thing about movies.)
Be careful not to sink into the slam of words. Try to imagine the specific, lived reality. For example, the word such as “war.”
Don’t think about yourself, what you want, what you need, or what you are disappointed in, as much as possible. Don’t think about you at all or at least for half of your living time.
Move around. Go traveling. Live abroad for a while. Never stop traveling. If you can’t go far away, in that case go deeply into places you can be by yourself. Even if time is disappearing, places are always there. Places compensate for time. For example, feelings that the past has not already been a burden.
In this world, businesses are dominant activities, and making money is a dominant standard. Maintain the philosophy of places to counter business or don’t care about business. If you want to be by yourself, you can be a power to counter the things that are weak and lack heart. Hate violence. Hate the decollation and narcissism of the country.
Imagine at least once a day that if you are one of the majority who live on the earth without passports, fridges, and phones and who have never got on planes.
You should be skeptical against the government of your country. Be skeptical against other countries governments as well.
Not to be fair is difficult. Therefore, reduce your fairness more than now. Laughing is good as long as you don’t intend to kill your emotions.
Don’t accept relationships which protect you or are despised by others. -If you are a woman, that can happen through your whole life. Cope with humiliation. Scold mean men severely.
Pay attention. Paying attention is the heart of it all. Take what there is in front of your eyes as much as possible. Then, don’t narrow your own life to lose duties which are imposed on you.
Paying attention is vital. It connects you to others. It makes you passionate. Always be passionate!
Keep your territory of conscience….
Susan Sontag
