Florence Given

But imagine if you listened to me and you heard me shrinking my words and shrinking my opinions by going, well, well, I guess from this person's perspective, this could be a perspective on the issue of being annoying.

And this and this and this, no, I'm just speaking and expressing myself.

That's my job.

And actually speaking your own opinions and writing your own opinions is one of the most audacious ways of taking up space.

Publishing a book is the most audacious way of taking up space I think I've ever done in my whole life.

Every time I publish a book, the audacity that it takes to think I deserve to take up space on bookshelves.

I deserve to take up space in the minds of other people and I'm going to hold their attention for about, I don't know, 300 pages long.

Because I think that what I have to say is important.

That shit is so fucking empowering.

And it's probably...

Also, why I pissed a lot of people off in my early 20s, because I had the audacity to think that I could write a book at 20.

Gosh, she's so annoying.

And I say this with the self-awareness that I'm not for everyone.

And what a joy it is to not be for everyone because I belong fully to myself.

When I stopped doing that little like pandering dance of trying to perform for other people and trying to get everyone to like me that I actually did a lot of in my early twenties as well.

I was so afraid of getting something wrong or my words not being politically correct enough that I was like, oh my God, the amount of time it would take me to write a fucking caption.

Why was I pretending not to be human?

Why do we do that?

Why do we pretend not to be human?

And it's because I guess there are now so, so many consequences for just speaking freely.