Roger Caillois, from his book A little Guide to the 15th Arrondissement for the Use of Phantoms, referencing Parisian advertising murals in the early decades of the 20th century:
“I felt a sudden affection for the person at Ivry Storage who had commissioned the mural. I reproached myself for having looked down on the man [as a youth]. Thanks to him, the universe in which I had lived out the first and decisive years of that second life that accompanies our conscious reveries, was restored to me: a collection of unexplained affinities that guide us without our realizing it, a spell whose origin escapes us and takes us prisoner.”
That second life that accompanies our conscious reveries. The advent of adulthood. This corresponds to my own idea that, while periodically I worry that I didn’t express myself adequately in my 20s, I also didn’t have anything useful to say in my 20s. The cement was freshly poured and still free-flowing. Credibility comes as the cement hardens.