My reaction is always one of disgust and disdain whenever I see or hear of someone adorned with official awards.

 My reaction is always one of disgust and disdain whenever I see or hear of someone adorned with official awards. For what does “being adorned” mean, if not servitude? And is not servitude bound to societality, since it is a form of domestication? Society itself, with all its social toxins, is the enemy of the inner world; nothing that benefits society or civilization can ever truly serve art or science. Thus, emotion and thought are genuine only when private; once published and shared, they become mere toys in the hands of the crowd. I assign no value to medals, yet when I set aside my view and look outward—toward people—I see them all chasing after these ornaments, measuring their worth by them, refusing to acknowledge any work as art unless it bears an award. They belittle an unread writer by saying, “But you’re not being read,” because they think that writer is not a “successful” one simply for lack of public recognition. Yet since I believe that to truly be a writer means precisely not to be read—because truth is not suited to noise—I can only respond to such reactions with an ancient sort of bewilderment. Since I have never internalized their social value of the “bright artist,” I cannot even comprehend their seemingly natural reaction; I simply cannot believe they could be so comic and ridiculous. Perhaps my mind, too, was expected to adapt to society as theirs did—but because I grew not within society but in its orbit, I can feel, at every moment, the dull mass-stupidity of career fetishism to which they have long since become numb.