flâneur

The Dizziness of Freedom - by Grace Sydney Smith

gracesydneysmith.substack.com · 882 words · saved by 1 readers

we have so much say in who we become that it's terrifying

Jean-Paul Sartre is a French philosopher who once said, “I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing.” We are, literally, the sum of our choices. Even stagnation has consequences. I had my first and only panic attack when I was sixteen-years-old. My friends and I attended a funeral for one of our classmates whose father had passed away. The boy got on stage and talked about his dad – his face blank with the eery serenity of someone still very much in shock – and I remember staring down at my hands folded in my lap, an unsettling feeling of dread…

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