Monday, 29 January, 1932:Something has happened to me, I can't doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like anordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, alittle put out, that's all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it's blossoming.I don't think the historian's trade is much given to psychological analysis. In our work we haveto do only with sentiments in the whole to which we give generic titles such as Ambition andInterest. And yet if I had even a shadow of self-knowledge, I could put it to good use now.For instance, there is something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe orfork. Or else it's the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I don't know. Alittle while ago, just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding the door-knob. This morning in the library, when the Self-Taught Man came to say goodmorning to me, it took me ten seconds to recognize him. I saw an unknown face, barely a face. Then there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand. I dropped it almost immediately and thearm fell back flabbily.There are a great number of suspicious noises in the streets, too.So a change has taken place during these last few weeks. But where? It is an abstract change without object. Am I the one who has changed? If not, then it is this room, this city and this nature; I must choose.
(Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea)
Im currently reading Nausea and what really caught my attention was the first paragraph. I felt this uncomfortable notion that I was just reading my own diary.
