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a selection from:
Intoxicated By My Illness
by Anatole Broyard
(Continuing Part I: Intoxicated by My Illness)
Time was no longer innocuous, nothing was casual any-
more. I understood that living itself had a deadline – like the
book I had been working on. How sheepish I would feel if I
couldn't finish it. I had promised it to myself and to my
friends. Though I wouldn't say this out loud, I had promised
it to the world. All writers privately think this way.
When my friends heard I had cancer, they found me
surprisingly cheerful and talked about my courage. But it has
nothing to do with courage, at least not for me. As far as I can
tell, it's a question of desire. I'm filled with desire – to live, to
write, to do everything. Desire itself is a kind of immortality.
While I've always had trouble concentrating, I now feel as
concentrated as a diamond or a microchip.
I remember a time in the 1950s when I tried to talk a
friend of mine named Jules out of committing suicide. He
had already made one attempt, and when I went to see him
he said, "Give me a good reason to go on living." He was
thirty years old.
I saw what I had to do. I started to sell life to him, like
a real estate agent. Just look at the world, I said. How can
you not be curious about it? The streets, the houses, the trees,
the shops, the people, the movement, and the stillness. Look at
the women, so appealing, each in her own way. Think of all the
things you can do with them, the places you can go together.
Think of books, paintings, music. Think of your friends.
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