Proverb, probably Chaucerian
Good aphorisms never die, they improve with age. Shakespeare expanded on this with his own –
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
The gist is the same – third parties are unnecessary when deep inside, you yourself know you are a slime bag. It is this fragile frame of mind that I think is at the core of the relatively modern addition to our language angst – that amorphous, indistinct feeling of dread, anxiety, or anguish. That horrid, self-critical voice at the back of your mind that won’t shut up – ever – and who’s volume is in direct proportion to the frequency with which you knowingly transgress the strict moral codes you preach to others while you think no one is looking.
This is the plague of all public moralists, especially the shameless populist ones. Naturally, this leads to hypersensitivity to any kind criticism at all. Everything, no matter how trivial or valid, becomes a personal attack and a subversion of their moral authority. Unchecked, this gives way to narcissism and paranoia – and a cultivated conspiratorial state of delusion where they have become important enough for some kind of they to go out of its way to specifically get them. (more…)
grey lining 