If constructing an identity that avoids Romantic solipsism but still exists when no one else is around sounds like your kind of high-stakes postmodern parlor game, Richard Klein suggests you take up smoking:
Like writing, smoking belongs to that category of action that falls in between the states of activity and passivity — a somewhat embarrassed, embarrassing condition, unclean, unproductive, a mere gesture.Christian? No problem. From The Way of All Flesh:
[Ernest] admitted that Paul would almost certainly have condemned tobacco in good round terms if he had known of its existence. Was it not then taking rather a mean advantage of the Apostle to stand on his not having forbidden it? On the other hand, it was possible that God knew Paul would have forbidden smoking, and had purposely arranged the discovery of tobacco for a period at which Paul should be no longer living. This might seem rather hard on Paul, considering all he had done for Christianity, but it would be made up to him in other ways.
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