His feelings seemed to him to be simple and rational responses to his predicament, which unfortunately happened to be neither a simple nor a rectifiable one. Still, he felt that if he could only make sense of the feelings, find the mode of expression which perfectly suited their weavings and doublings he would be able to put them at some distance from himself and this would be the first step towards a true understanding of the underlying  predicament. This was an impossible dream since the expression itself, as act, as intention and as understanding, was at the core of both feeling and predicament. To speak, no matter how privately is always an event in social space, despite the attempts to treat it as if it were merely a matter of being overheard. There are as many shapes to the interlocutor as to the self, but it cannot be reduced to the self. The circle of utterance catches on something unutterable and never contracts to a point.