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Self-examination, according to one dictionary, is an introspective consideration of one's own thoughts or emotions, or scrutiny of one's own conduct, motives, desires, etc.
There must be a reason that I delete so many of the stories, poems, and supposedly factual essays I write. Could it be that I recognize the quality of my writing as being so inferior to the work of established published writers that I shudder at the thought of readers recognizing this inferiority? Perhaps I know (believe) my thoughts are not profound at all but are blatantly shallow and pedestrian, and that I cannot after all think original thoughts, but only think I can. And that this fact is easily perceived by the occasional intellectual reader of my (self-published) words.
After I once had written . . .
"Yes, even though consensus suggests mankind is a noble creation of an omnipotent and eternal being granted the title of God, the granter of this title might itself be nothing more than one of an instantaneous infestation of minuscule mites inhabiting a single momentary micro- grain of dust within another hurtling grain observed and recognized by a true God as being but an insignificant minor galaxy."
. . . I realized that I had written merely another pale and puny echo of that which was previously proposed by a better bard indeed.
Shakespeare had his Hamlet say:
"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"
See what I mean?
Anthropocentrism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective.
But Mark Twain wrote:
"If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno."
Again: See what I mean?
So, why then do I continue stringing words together into redundant sentences?
I have no answer.
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All good books have one thing in common--they are truer than if they had really happened.
--Ernest Hemingway
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