dwindled from disuse

"I saw in every phase and moment of his pitiful weakness the utter wretch I had been, the blackguard, nothing less, who had striven so vainly and ignominiously to protect his miserable little heart. I saw that it never had been broken, as I imagined, but that paralyzed by fear, it had shrunk almost to nothingness. I saw that the grievous wounds which had brought me low had all been received in a senseless effort to prevent this shriveled heart from breaking. The heart itself had never been touched; it had dwindled from disuse."

-Henry Miller

Nexus

our chief fear

"With the desire for creation comes the fear of being born. As life is taken up into art, so art is being converted into life. And the birth through creation is analogous to the birth of the self. To create is to become whole and separate, independent, but this indepence is also our chief fear."

- William A. Gordon
The Mind and Art of Henry Miller