We are Them

Interesting session with Mrs U in which she dammed her mother's eccentricities. I think she was completely unconscious that the traits she found most obnoxious were those shared most identically between mother and daughter.

We believe that introspection is the most reliable source of knowledge -- it certainly feels that way. In fact, we are strangers to ourselves.

For an accurate portrait we need the opinions of those who know us, expressed in their private conversation and writing. But an accurate portrait is almost unbearable. The shocked diary snooper or eavesdropper -- the relationship changed needlessly but forever -- is one of those cliches that's trite because it's so real and so common.

I wonder whether this is the real reason why words like "nosing" and "prying" carry such an ugly load: not defence of privacy, but psychic self-protection. We can't bear to know.