Too Write

I am the best and sharpest critic of my own work. I know myself what is and what is not well written. Anyone who doesn't write doesn't know how wonderful it is; I used to bemoan the fact that I couldn't draw at all, but now I am more than happy that I can at least write. And if I haven't any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.
     I want to get on; I can't imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mommy and Mrs. Van Daan and all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to!
     I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me.
     I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so, oh, I hope so very much, for I can recapture everything when I write, my thoughts, my ideals and my fantasies.
     I haven't done anything more to "Cady's Life" for ages; in my mind I know exactly how to go on, but somehow it doesn't flow from my pen. Perhaps I never shall finish it, it may land up in the wastepaper basket, or the fire ... that's a horrible idea, but then I think to myself, "At the age of fourteen and with so little experience, how can you write about philosophy?"
     So I go on again with fresh courage; I think I shall succeed, because I want to write!

Yours, Anne

— Anne Frank, from entry "Tuesday, 4 April, 1944," in Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, Mooyart-Doubleday (tr.), p. 175.

If I am not for myself, who will be?
If I am for myself only, what am I?
If not now — when?
— Talmudic saying, Mishnah, Abot

....But although many rational doubts have been solved by rational answers, the irrational doubt has not disappeared and cannot disappear as long as man has not progressed from negative freedom to positive freedom. The modern attempts to silence it, whether they consist in a compulsive striving for success, in the belief that unlimited knowledge of facts can answer the quest for certainty, or in submission to a leader who assumes the responsibility for "certainty' — all these solutions can only eliminate the awareness of doubt. The doubt itself will not disappear as long as man does not overcome his isolation and as long as his place in the world has not become a meaningful one in terms of his human needs.
— Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, pp. 97-98.

     What we can observe at the kernel of every neurosis, as well as of normal development, is the struggle for freedom and independence. For many normal persons this struggle has ended in a complete giving up of their individual selves, so that they are thus well adapted and considered to be normal. The neurotic person is the one who has not given up fighting against complete submission, but who, at the same time, has remained bound to the figure of the magic helper, whatever form or shape "he" may have assumed. His neurosis is always to be understood as an attempt, and essentially an unsucessful one, to solve the conflict between that basic dependency and the quest for freedom.
— Erich Fromm, Ibid., p. 201.

The uniqueness of the self in no way contradicts the principle of equality. The thesis that men are born equal implies that they all share the same fundamental human qualities, that they share the basic fate of human beings, that they all have the same inalienable claim on freedom and happiness. It furthermore means that their relationship is one of solidarity, not one of dominance-submission. What the concept does not mean is that all men are alike.
— Erich Fromm, Ibid., pp. 290-291.