What's wrong

"I am starting this in an effort to return into myself. It is as though a glass ball has dropped between me and myself. Extrinsically, it looks the same as it has before--the picture seems unchanged--but this is untrue. I am in danger of becoming one of those amputated ones--with all my days and nights given up in the pursuit of wages--not creation. I mean no writing that illuminates--and no true writing at all--not even book reviews. Into those I can work something seedlike. For [Harper's] Bazaar, I can give, thus far, only sterility. The surface coruscates, but it is sterile. How to live? I am so luxury-loving. Anaïs [Nin] said today that she could only write a little book behind the door: She gave later; I give here and now. But this is no consolation. She said that she couldn't see how I would have anything left for a book because I was so flamboyant and prodigal. I said that is what's wrong."
--excerpt from The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman