Lust was a positive high-tension cable, plugged into my core, activating a near-epileptic seizure of conviction that this was the one thing I had to do in life.
Interpretation
The quote expresses how intense desire can drive a person to pursue their passions with great urgency.
Will Self uses the metaphor of 'lust' as a powerful force that ignites a deep conviction within him, suggesting that some desires can feel almost overwhelming, propelling us to take action. This represents how strong emotions and motivations can lead us to find our true purpose in life, compelling us to pursue what we feel is essential.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire young people to pursue their dreams.
When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.
What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader.
Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I feel like saying to them: 'You simply don't understand - how can a child be held responsible for doing such a dreadful thing to himself?' But then again, at other times I have to acknowledge: it was done wilfully.
Death, the real simile for disease - for when we are ill, do we not always feel like we are dying, even if it's only a little? - remains, despite our secularism, the most metaphoricised phenomenon of all.
The marvellous thing about writing, whether it be fiction or journalism, is that it is simultaneously the most intimate and the most anonymous of meetings between people. It is profoundly intimate in reaching into the psyche of another, at the same time as being devoid of social characteristics, cultural characteristics, economic characteristics.
One of the most heartening phenomena in today's Britain is the great diversity of the modern nerd - the nerd is out and proud, and while she may love 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' merchandise more than is strictly warranted, she is in every way to be cherished as an exemplar of cosmopolitanism and tolerance.
Don't let the doom criers and the cynics persuade you that the best is past.
An idea is something that won't work unless you do.
Greatness starts with a clear vision of the future.
The great secret is a controlled imagination and a well-sustained attention, firmly and repeatedly focused on the object to be accomplished.
When a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed, whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope.
There are no real successes without rejection. The more rejection you get, the better you are, the more you've learned, the closer you are to your outcome... If you can handle rejection, you'll learn to get everything you want.
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