Here's another aphorism I'll bring up in re to Pynchon and get jeered for. perhaps silently.

[Mark Kohut]

 @alaindebotton A measure of how seldom we are able to say what we feel to 
people is how many writers there are in the world.

Or, in Pynchon's vision, how the writing (onto paper) starts/is the human 
distancing....See GR passim