Because the self in the twentieth century is a voracious nought which expands like the feeding vacuole of an amoeba seeking to nourish and inform its own nothingness by ingesting new objects in the world but, like a vacuole, only succeeds in emptying them out.
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In the twentieth century, the concept of self has transformed into an insatiable entity, akin to an amoeba. This self continuously seeks new experiences and objects to fill what feels like a void. However, despite this effort to find meaning and substance, it ends up consuming these new elements without truly integrating or retaining them.
Walker Percy suggests that this dynamic leads to a cycle of emptiness, where the self remains unchanged, merely extracting rather than absorbing anything meaningful. The pursuit of external validation or fulfillment ultimately results in a superficial existence, leaving the self more vacuous than before.
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