Inconsistency

Consistency is overrated. Just because I started out as a mad bohemian poet, doesn't mean I'm stuck in that mode for life. Perhaps I can drop all that and become a North African gun-runner- which is what Rimbaud did.

Most of our fiction- popular and less popular- is a celebration of the person who changes. This book I'm reading at the moment- John Buchan's Huntingtower- has as its hero a retired Glaswegian grocer who goes for a ramble and ends up heroically shooting at people. We don't have to let our antecedents cow us. We can, if we choose, become the opposite of what we were- or less drastically, work endless variations on an original theme.

This is (one reason) why we find actors so fascinating. They make a living out of becoming other people. We wish we had their freedom- only we do, we do. All it takes is a little courage...

Inconsistency is glorious.