I really relate to this passage, and I'm sure many others do as well. It functions as a constant reminder, to be, rather than to have.
As psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote in "To Have or To Be?: "We internalize the authoritarian structure of our society," and most of us, depending on our class and social position, learn early that we are expected to get a particular kind of education, get married at a particular time of life, get a particular kind of job, and ultimately get as rich and as famous as our circumstances will allow. If we are female, we are also trained to hunger for a better face and body. But all this getting rarely gains us a sense of our own identity. "Most people," according to Fromm, "believe theyy are following their own will and are unaware that their will itself is conditioned and manipulated." In other words, they operate under an illusion of decisiveness without actually being self-directed. For those who do sense and recoil from this manipulation, the need to feel real may demand physical as well as emotional relocation, to a different kind of community or culture.
The true existential choice, Fromm wrote, is not between wanting this or that-miniskirts or boyfriends, money or love-but between wanting to claim possession of things, roles, and even relationships (Let me have) and wanting to freely exist, express oneself, give and experience (Let me be).
Knit. Purl. Revolt.
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