"BERLIN, July 16. 1848. -- There is but one thing needful--to possess God.
All our senses, all our powers of mind and soul, all our external resources,
are so many ways of approaching the divinity, so many modes of tasting and of
adoring God. We must learn to detach ourselves from all that is capable of
being lost, to bind ourselves absolutely only to what is absolute and eternal,
and to enjoy the rest as a loan, a usufruct.... To adore, to understand, to
receive, to feel, to give, to act: there is my law, my duty, my happiness, my
heaven. Let come what come will--even death. Only be at peace with self, live
in the presence of God, in communion with Him, and leave the guidance of
existence to those universal powers against whom thou canst do nothing! If
death gives me time, so much the better. If its summons is near, so much the
better still; if a half-death overtake me, still so much the better, for so the
path of success is closed to me only that I may find opening before me the path
of heroism, of moral greatness and resignation. Every life has its potentiality
of greatness, and as it is impossible to be outside God, the best is
consciously to dwell in Him." 

    -- The First Published Entry of the Intimate Journal of Henri-Frédéric
       Amiel

---

To speak of one's own attributes is to exist outside of one's self, if even for
a moment. 

In that moment of distancing, there is a sense of deceit and betrayal. 

Who am I to declare what I am? That belongs to others to define in their own
models.

I cannot speak of myself *being* anything, because tomorrow I could be anything
*else*. 

Of course, there is a continuity of values, beliefs, perspectives. But in this
continuity, there is also an unending stream of constantly changing interests,
dispositions, attitudes. Half-started, half-finished creatures, picked up in
fevered intensity and dropped just as quickly. The ideals behind such projects
remain, but the attempts to capture their essence fade away like so many other
idols.

The one unchanging disposition has been that of adoring the entirety of
existence.

From this perspective, it's only sensical that all attempts to create have
failed: how can one reflect the inifinity of existence without losing signal in
finite creations? One can merely adore in silence and put forth the best of
self, hoping that to be enough.