I sadly keep coming up with book ideas instead of actually delving further into anything... thus:

Kierkegaard "The balance between the esthetic and the ethical in the development of the personality" from Either/Or

a taste from just a few pages in: (it's written in the form of a letter.. an older man to a younger man... Kierkegaard using these two created positions without aligning himself with either)

"Life is a masquerade, you explain, and for you this is inexhaustible material for amusement, and as yet no one has succeeded in knowing you, for every disclosure is always a deception. Only in this way can you breathe and prevent people from crowding too close upon you and making it difficult for you to breathe. Your occupation consists in preserving your hiding place, and you are successful, for your mask is the most enigmatical of all; that is, you are a nonentity and are something only in relation to others, and what you are you are only through this relation..."