You try to ensure that your thoughts will only appear respectably groomed and attired, certainly without stipulating any degree of formality, or carefully judged informality, faux casual or sportif, anything too studied. But a knowingness, a grown-up look, having been around the block a few times, even a certain deliberately accidental elegance, an off-handed defense against a history of gullibility, of naïveté, of an unthinking devotion to enthusiasm, to what was perceived as worthy of arousing enthusiasm, merely for the sake of enthusiasm. You were a quick study, but only to a degree. Of course you wanted to get at the truth of things, but that was a role as well, and the role took you much further than the thing itself, even if the role could never have existed without the thing itself. The two became hopelessly confused and you didn't mind because it saved you so much work, so much of being entirely in the dark, from the perilous exposure of the child that that in spite of it all you've remained, from the measure of your reach, from the scene of the trade of enthusiasms.