When did you know you were a failure?, W. repeatedly asks me. When was it you knew you'd never have a single thought of your own – not one? He asks me these questions, W. says, because he's constantly posing them to himself. Why is he still so amazed at his lack of ability? He's not sure. But he is amazed, and he will never get over it, and this will have been his life, this amazement and his inability to get over it.
What amazes him still further, says W., is that I am almost entirely lacking in the same amazement. I am like the idiot double of a idiot, W. says, being of the same intelligence (or nearly the same intelligence; I am a few IQ points behind him), of the same degree of laziness (or nearly the same laziness; I am more indolent than he is), but entirely lacking an awareness of what I so signally lack.
Lars Iyer's Blog 