Who you become in high-stress situations help you understand who you really are.
“What I noticed is that that office takes your personality and exaggerates it — you become a caricature of who you are. And he has a personality trait that costs him politically, and it’s the personality trait of a writer. He really is at bottom a writer, and the trait is — he’s in a moment and not in a moment at the same time. He can be in a room but detach himself at the same time. It’s almost as if he’s writing about it at the same time he’s participating in it. It’s a curious inside-outside thing, and the charge that he’s aloof grows right out of this trait.
