Let’s get one thing out of the way: I am extremely, ridiculously sensitive to other people’s judgment, largely because, as the cliché has it, I’m my own harshest critic, and thus magnify anyone else’s criticism to a preposterous degree and use it to prove that my brutal self-evaluation is not only correct but possibly not severe enough. Am I practicing true, sincere “vulnerability” by admitting this? Or am I performing, knowing that in at least some circles there is social capital to be gained through confession? Lauren Oyler, cultural critic and novelist, might say that in sharing this self-knowledge, I’m taking part in our current era’s focus on “the controlled release of intimate details.”
Read Full Article »
