open

i just finished reading Open, Andre Agassi's autobiography and I loved it! it was recommended by a good friend who thought it might inspire me, which it totally did. at a point in my life when i have no less than a million thoughts swimming through my head at every moment, none of which make sense or seem connected - the book provides some relief in knowing everybody has similar struggles, the hardest one always seeming to be with oneself. i hope this helps me sort out some of the mumbo jumbo crowding my thoughts.

i especially enjoyed the opening quote:

One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us, but still one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy? I do not think so. And then one asks: My God! Is it for long, is it for ever, is it for eternity? Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is very deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by supreme power, by some magic force.

 - Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, July 1880