The Obsession with Repetition: Reading Four Quartets 100 Times
Another week, another stretch of nothing but Four Quartets.
I’m still deep in this little experiment—reading it 100 times—and I just crossed the halfway mark.
There’s something about repetition that opens a text up in unexpected ways.
Eventually, it stops being something you read and starts becoming something you inhabit.
The words dissolve into the mind’s rhythm, revealing layers that weren’t visible at first glance.
Wealth, Auto-Suggestion, and the Illusion of Control
Outside of Four Quartets, I’ve been dabbling in Think and Grow Rich—just a few pages here and there.
It’s one of those books that only lands in fragments, like a puzzle piece locking into place one section at a time.
Everyone has heard of it.
It’s always on those best personal development books lists, promising the secret to success in thirteen steps.
I’ve read it before, but this time, something struck me differently: everything in it hinges on the principle of auto-suggestion.
Affirmation is the foundation.
The other steps exist to reinforce and amplify that singular act of declaring what you want.
Strip away the layers of marketing mystique, and the process is simple—decide on the goal, determine the cost, make a plan, and move.
It really is that straightforward.
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The White Lotus and the Art of Abjection
Beyond Napoleon Hill and the ongoing immersion in Eliot, I didn’t pick up anything else this week.
But I did watch something.
The White Lotus Season 3 dropped, and if there’s one thing everyone should know about me—it’s that I love Walton Goggins.
I’ll watch anything he’s in.
My introduction to him was Major League: Back to the Minors, a forgettable third installment of an otherwise great franchise.
But it didn’t matter.
I was hooked.
So, in preparation for the new season, I went back and watched the first two.
I had only caught a few episodes before, so this was my first real immersion.
The White Lotus is a black comedy drama centered around the tensions between the ultra-wealthy guests of a five-star resort and the staff catering to them.
Jennifer Coolidge owns both seasons, but the thing that really stuck with me was the sense of abjection.
Julia Kristeva describes abjection as a breakdown of the symbolic order—something neither fully subject nor object, neither entirely part of us nor wholly separate.
It’s pre-rational, bodily.
It’s the shudder of peeling the skin off warm milk.
The show embodies this feeling, especially in Season 2, where the power dynamics of desire, attraction, resentment, and self-deception unravel in slow, unsettling ways.
Power, Deception, and the Games We Play
Take the core relationships in Season 2: Harper and Ethan versus Cameron and Daphne.
At first glance, Harper and Ethan seem like the rational, morally superior couple.
They believe they see through the illusions of Cameron and Daphne’s marriage.
But as the season progresses, the reality is more complicated.
Harper, frustrated by Ethan’s emotional distance, leans into Cameron’s flirtation—not necessarily out of attraction, but to elicit a reaction.
Ethan, who presents himself as unaffected, spirals into violent jealousy when Harper finally forces him to feel something.
Their relationship is marked by detachment, by the refusal to acknowledge their deeper desires.
Cameron and Daphne, in contrast, live in the realm of play.
Daphne hints that she knows Cameron cheats but refuses to see herself as a victim.
Instead, she plays her own game—flirting with Ethan, disappearing overnight, subtly implying that one of her children might not be Cameron’s.
Their marriage thrives on illusion, on selective ignorance, on an agreement to not examine things too closely.
In a strange way, their ability to manipulate their own narrative makes their relationship more resilient than Harper and Ethan’s.
The White Lotus asks whether illusion is actually a more sustainable structure than rigid honesty.
Self-Delusion and the Cost of Fantasy
This theme of manipulation plays out again in the dynamic between Jack/Portia and Albie/Lucia.
Portia, desperate for spontaneity, is initially drawn to Jack’s reckless charm.
But as things progress, that charm takes on a more sinister edge.
The turning point is that late-night car ride—where Jack’s flirtation shifts into something threatening.
Portia, who thought she was seeking adventure, realizes she has lost control.
Her attraction curdles into unease.
It’s abjection—she knows something is wrong before she can fully articulate why.
Albie, on the other hand, believes himself to be the “good guy.”
He casts himself as Lucia’s savior, convinced that she needs his help to escape her life.
But Lucia is always in control.
She understands the transaction from the beginning, while Albie clings to the delusion that their connection is real.
Unlike Portia, who is physically trapped, Albie is trapped in a fantasy of his own making.
Both storylines showcase the season’s broader themes—desire, deception, and self-delusion.
One ends in Portia’s disillusionment, the other in Albie’s blissful ignorance.
The Blind Spots We Choose
It’s all a question of how much we choose to see.
And more importantly—how much we choose to ignore.
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