CLVI

At lunch the famous artist told me about his clinical depression. I told him that he seemed to be doing much better. "Well" he began "my doctor has prescribed Prozac." "Really?" I inquired. "Yes. I was afraid to start taking it but then I realized that it would help me in awkward social situations. For example I felt that I could now be in a room full of people that intimidated me and feel no fear but..." "But what?" I asked him. "But instead what happened was when I took it it made me ask myself 'Why would I want to be in a room full of people that intimidated me in the first place?'" he answered, I'm not what one would call an ambitious man who solicits. I don't like soliciting -- in the first place because it's tiring -- and then generally it doesn't do any good. I don't expect anything. I don't need anything. Soliciting is one of the forms of need the consequence of a need. This doesn't exist for me because fundamentally I have gotten along fine without producing anything for a long time now. I don't ascribe to the artist that sort of social role in which he feels obligated to make something where he owes himself to the public. Of such considerations I have a horror;