Maggie's Farm

From a piece on Thomas Merton at Crosscurrents:

"I drink beer whenever I can get my hands on any," Merton confessed. "I love beer, and by that very fact, the world." But even in the hermitage, Merton struggled with other people's infatuation with his hermit identity.

In an age where there is much talk about "being yourself" I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else. Rather, it seems to me that when one is too intent on "being himself" he runs the risk of impersonating a shadow. . . I am accused of living in the woods like Thoreau instead of living in the desert like St. John the Baptist. All I can answer is that I am not living "like anybody." Or "unlike anybody." We all live somehow or other, and that's that. It is a compelling necessity for me to be free to embrace the necessity of my own nature.