How many people do you know who are unaffected by praise or blame?

Disarmed, everybody has to be disarmed. In the final liberation, I'm an
ass, you're an ass. Normally the way it goes, I press a button and you're up; I
press another button and you're down. And you like that. How many people
do you know who are unaffected by praise or blame? That isn't human, we
say. Human means that you have to be a little monkey, so everybody can
twist your tail, and you do whatever you ought to be doing. But is that
human? If you find me charming, it means that right now you're in a good
mood, nothing more.

It also means that I fit your shopping list. We all carry a shopping list around,
and it's as though you've got to measure up to this list--tall, um, dark, um,
handsome, according to my tastes. "I like the sound of his voice." You say,
"I'm in love." You're not in love, you silly ass. Any time you're in love-- I
hesitate to say this--you're being particularly asinine. Sit down an watch
what's happening to you. You're running away from yourself. You want to
escape. Somebody once said, "Thank God for reality, and for the means to
escape from it." So that's what's going on. We are so mechanical, so
controlled. We write books about being controlled and how wonderful it is to
be controlled and how necessary it is that people tell you you're O.K. Then
you'll have a good feeling about yourself. How wonderful it is to be in prison!
Or as somebody said to me yesterday, to be in your cage. Do you like being
in prison? Do you like being controlled? Let me tell you something: If you
ever let yourself feel good when people tell you that
you're O.K., you are preparing yourself to feel bad
when they tell you you're not good. As long as you live to fulfill other
people's expectations, you better watch what you wear, how you comb your hair, whether
your shoes are polished--in short, whether you live up to every damned expectation of theirs.
Do you call that human?