beguilement

I've tried all of my life, in myriads ways -- unconsciously and consciously, painfully and precociously -- to be beguiling. To beguile. To create beguilement.

I have no idea if I've ever succeeded. But wait, is that disingenious? I mean nothing deceitful here; nothing deceptive in my guile -- as if the word is stripped of its stronger origin and only carries the charm instead. Like a love elixir you drink freely but whose precise effects you can never determine. Is it working? Maybe? Well...yes! But then, possibly, maybe not....

Reading some essays by Adam Phillips an hour or so after typing in the above, I come across this: "'You know what charm is?' the narrator of Camus's The Fall asks. 'A way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.'