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"All truth is simple." Is that not doubly a lie?—Nietzsche

Men standing around broken machines

Somewhere during the sensitive age that ensued I learned that it is okay to cry and, being a boolean kid, I concluded that those who do not cry are not okay. I cultivated sensitivity like an orchid. As I nursed my anguish I thought I was working things out brilliantly, but in many cases I was not resolving anything but rather pointing at my burdens and expecting to be admired for the act of pointing. I wrote a great deal: tens of thousands of words.

In The Waiting Room by David Sedaris

The advantages of speaking French

Six months after moving to Paris, I gave up on French school and decided to take the easy way out. All I ever said was “Could you repeat that?” And for what? I rarely understood things the second time around, and when I did it was usuall something banal, the speaker wondering how I felt about toast, or telling me that the store would close in twenty minutes All that work for something that didn’t really matter, and so I began saying, D’accord,” which translates to “I am in agreement,” and means, basically, “O.K.” The word was a key to a magic door, and every time I said it I felt the thrill of possibility.

“D’accord,” I told the concierge, and the next thing I knew I was sewing the eye onto a stuffed animal belonging to her granddaughter. “D’accord,” I said to the dentist, and she sent me to a periodontist, who took some X-rays and called me into his conference room for a little talk. “D’accord,” I said, and a week later I returned to his office, where he sliced my gums from top to bottom and scraped great deposits of plaque from the roots of my teeth. If I’d had any idea that this was going to happen, I’d never have said d’accord to my French publisher, who’d scheduled me the following evening for a television appearance. It was a weekly cultural program, and very popular. I followed the pop star Robbie Williams, and, as the producer settled me into my chair, I ran my tongue over my stitches. It was like having a mouthful of spiders—spooky, but it gave me something to talk about on TV, and for that I was grateful.

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