Alter Text von Joan Didion über das Finden, die Suche und den Wert wahrer Selbstachtung (wann beginnt sie? Was ist sie nicht?) aus der Vogue. Natürlich voller ungewöhnlicher, aufregender Bilder, wie bei der Meisterin üblich, und schmerzhaft präzise:

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The charms that work on others count for nothing in that devastatingly well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.

Und:

The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation—which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, is something that people with courage can do without.

Die gute, alte, süße Selbstverleugnung also, die uns den Blick auf das schmerzhafte Eingeständnis der eigenen Defizite verstellt, verhindert Selbstachtung. Um aber eine selbstbestimmtes Leben nach den eigenen Vorstellungen zu führen, braucht man genau die, so Didion. Der ganze Text ist ein Plädoyer für Disziplin und die Kunst, da hin zu gehen, wo es weh tut.

In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and with United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for re-election. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

Selbstverantwortlich handeln, klingt so einfach. Ist aber letztlich, in aller Konsequenz, sehr schwer. Das spielt Joan Didion in diesem kurzen Essay noch einmal wahnsinnig eloquent durch. Lesen!