Accountable

a man needs someone to know him, my shrink
tells me. in business, it’s sometimes who you
know, but in life it’s always a matter
of who knows you. there’s something hardwired there
that makes us crave, need even, that contact,
that contract if you will, of knowing and
being known—an accountability—
in a social sense whether or not in
a moral or ethical sense. a need
for continuity . . . without that link,
we flirt with the dissolution of per-
sonality, of personhood; and that
becomes the short track to insanity,
not the fun kind, but of the sociopath.

David M Pitchford
14 Oct 2011

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