Tendencies and preference form before we know what we are up to; this is childhood. Children are like involuntary cave sponges, whose absorptions happen in total darkness, without choice and without causal or sequential awareness. Their formings are always idiosyncratic.

These private agglomerations eventually see the light of day, entering something like a relational turn. The imbroglios quickly develop the shorthand of social survival. Here most realize that the gulf of understanding between individuals contains ambiguity rather than facts and modulate accordingly; for others of course it is more tragic.

But the whole thing is rather tragic.

For all though, the aired hermetic sponge will eventually stiffen into a “personality” — one dominated by specific anticipations — creating an asymmetrical, endlessly maddening desire for intelligibility and requital — the yearning for love. But it’s possible that pliability can return, even a certain satiation. Perhaps it is started by returning to the original private cave of youth and developing it into something like a spiritual cave — like a personal Ajanta. It seems you wouldn’t even have to go that far — just close your eyes and reoccupy the cave of your head.