Fear makes you voiceless

From Ferdydurke:

How different would be the attitude of a man who, instead of saturating himself with the phraseology of a million conceptualist metaphysician-aestheticians, looked at the world with new eyes and allowed himself to feel the enormous influence which form has on human life. If he still wanted to use his fountain-pen, he would do so, not in order to become a great writer and create art, but, let us say, the better to express his own personality and draw a clear picture of himself in the eyes of others; or to organize himself, bring order within himself, and by confession to cure any complexes or immaturities; and also, perhaps, to make his contact with others deeper, more intimate, more creative, more sharply outlined, which could be of great benefit to his mind and his development; or, for instance, he might try to combat customs, prejudices, principles which he found contrary to his nature; or again, he might write simply to earn a living. He certainly would not spare effort to ensure that his work possessed an artistically attractive form, but his principal goal would be, not art, but himself. He would no longer write pretentiously, to educate, to elevate, to guide, to moralize, and to edify his fellow-men; his aim would be his own elevation and his own progress; and he would write, not because he was mature and had found his form, but because he was still immature and in his efforts to attain form was humiliating himself, making a fool of himself, and sweating like a climber still struggling towards the mountain-top, being a man still on the way to self-fulfillment. And if he should happen to write a worthless or silly book, he would say to himself: Well, I have written some rubbish, but I have signed no contract with anyone to write a clever or perfect book. I expressed my stupidity, and I am glad of it, for I am formed and fashioned by the severity of the human judgments which I have called down on my head, and it is as if I were being reborn. You see, then, that an artist equipped with this healthy philosophy is so well rooted in himself that neither stupidity nor immaturity can frighten or harm him; he can externalize himself and hold his head high, in spite of his indolence, while you can externalize nothing, for fear makes you voiceless.

                                                          -Witold Gombrowicz