One does not "find oneself" by pursuing one's self, but on the contrary by pursuing something else and learning through discipline or routine. . . who one is and wants to be.
Do I think there's life after death? No, I think my books are my life after death.
Do we always make our freedom out of someone else's bondage?
So let the world go, but hold fast to joy.
So this was fame at last! Nothing but a vast debt to be paid to the world in energy, blood, and time.
I suppose one has to remember that 'life' is important too, though it's something I forget in some moods, everything except work seeming like an interruption or really non-life.