Indeed...

...Leslie Jamison: confessional writing is not self-indulgent

There was a particular hypocrisy that attached to the fact that it was always empathy I was talking about. Empathy is all about otherness, but my relationship to empathy was largely about me – my book, my career. I usually passed the homeless man who stood near my subway stop without giving him anything, because I was always in a rush: heading to the airport, or a photo shoot, or some radio studio downtown; I needed to get somewhere and talk to someone about caring for everyone. At Newark airport, in New Jersey, snapping a photo of my book I'd found in the airport bookstore, I kept backing up to get a better crop and I nearly knocked over a woman with a cane. What would I have said? Excuse me while I injure you, I'm just trying to get a better angle on my empathy book vanity shot.