‘People said: “Oh, be yourself at all costs”. But I had found that it was not so easy to know just what one’s self was. It was far easier to want what other people seemed to want and then imagine that the choice was one’s own’. In this meeting we will read Chapter V, ‘Searching for a Purpose’, from A Life Of One’s Own.
Written before Milner trained as a psychoanalyst, this book is difficult to classify: part diary, part detective story. The aim of this reading group is not to master Milner’s writing, but to try out for ourselves Milner’s experiments in writing, thinking, and observation. After a discussion of the text, participants are invited to take a walk in a neighbouring park, and to write a journal entry, if they so wish.
Email akshi.singh@qmul.ac.uk for readings or further information.