On God: An Uncommon Conversation by Norman Mailer, Michael Lennon

myself.
    Now, obviously, there is room for error. We all know about vanity. There are people who, when they like themselves, are dangerous. When they think they are extraordinary and fabulous, they can be awful.
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    So it isn’t so much that you have no ethical system but one that cannot be abstracted nor carved on tablets for people to carry around and consult whenever they have to make a decision. Life is always more complicated than any rule that can be laid down.
    What I’m asking for…. This is an odd analogy, but not entirely. There are certain people who worship sex, good sex. I might be one of them. What I’ve noticed about good sex, when it’s really good, is the extreme sensitivity with which you proceed. At a given moment, it’s a creative dance. There is such a thing as a pure act of love when every moment is distinctive and lovely and fine. That does happen. For most people, it happens so rarely that they remember it—and then remember it and remember it. A sense of perfection does live in our concept of sex.
    In the same way, sometimes, for short periods in our lives, I think there’s an analogous sense of perfection to all sorts of basic emotions—in love, in nurture, in caring for people, in grieving, in mourning. It’s very hard to mourn, mourn openly and honestly. Mourning is an element in people’s lives that can be duplicitous, even ugly. Take a wife who’s been married to a man for forty years—and in her mourning, what if she detects a secret spot of glee? “That selfish bastard is finally gone.” So mourning can be shocking for people because they discover sides of themselves they never knew existed—or the reverse. Sometimes people die whom you thought you didn’t care that much about, and you discover you have lost something or someone valuable to you. So there is the constant element of discovering yourself—not in the time-consuming way people do in psychoanalysis, where every little act has to be analyzed and reanalyzed until the air in the room is stale. Rather, just like making love, it’s a matter of being sensitive to the moment, reflecting the moment as best you can. And that is not an easy matter. You want a few general ethical principles from me? Remarks I’d even offer to a stranger? Well, then, if possible, I would say to the stranger, “Give up smoking.” Because that tends to block a good deal of sensitivity in yourself. It serves the will. I used to smoke two packs a day—why? Because it served my will, particularly when it came to writing. Took me a year to learn how to begin writing again once I did give it up. Perhaps I became a better writer. My point is, anything that will enable you to get closer to yourself, good or bad…in other words, being close to oneself can be much more unpleasant than being at a distance from oneself. That is why most people do choose, indeed, to be a bit removed from themselves. And so often—here’s the dirty little secret—that’s why they smoke.
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    But you know, I remember something else you said about getting close to yourself. It’s stuck with me. I don’t even remember where you said it—you might have brought it up in conversation—but you declared: “If you dig deep enough into yourself, you’re going to come out your asshole.”
    [N.M. laughs]
    In other words, yes, there are doors, and you must open many of those doors, and the ensuing doors within doors, but every once in a while you want to be careful about what you open.
    Well, of course, you have to be careful about certain doors. Anyone who flings everything ajar at once would be blown away. A mighty change could rage through all the rooms in your psyche. One of the most jealously self-protective elements in human nature may be to protect oneself from one’s own dark and barricaded