And I myself felt threatened by the fragility of the distant poles on which I depended.

Read Antoine de Saint-Exupery Wartime Writings 1939 – 1944 this weekend. I recommend it—it’s very thoughtful, very honest writing—but skip the last third if you don’t want to join him in the depths of depression!

I said to myself: ‘I don’t mind being a traveler, I don’t want to be an emigrant. I’ve learned so many things at home that will be useless elsewhere.’ But now these emigrants were taking their address books out of their pockets, the remains of their identity. They still pretended to be someone. They clung obstinately to some semblance of meaning. They said, ‘That is who I am… I come from such and such a town… I am the friend of so and so… Do you know him?’ They went on to tell you the story of a friend, or a mistake, or any other story that could link them to something.AND And so I said to myself, ‘The essential thing is that something should remain of what one has lived for: customs, family celebrations, one’s childhood home. The main thing is to live for one’s return…’ And I myself felt threatened by the fragility of the distant poles on which I depended. And I might well come to know a real desert.