Purposeless

Lately I’ve been facing the question of the nature of our blog. ‘It’s pretentious’, a kind friend said. ‘It’s narcissistic’, suggested another. Why do we keep up this blog? Is it to prove ourselves to the world or to each other?
Perhaps we need humbling. Self-deprecation is not genuine humbling, because it suggests disappointment in oneself, which is only possible so long as one has special expectations of oneself. To be truly humble is not to see the fact of one’s ordinariness as negative, but to embrace it and even love it. Indeed, amor fati applies even here.
And yet, I have been in a rotten mood for the past few weeks which I can’t seem to escape. My only moments of happiness (yes, I use a word that strong) come during these moments of stirring and unsettled excitement when something in me pushes me to write. This has been true writing – when I completely forget any notion of a potential reader while writing. For the idea of being read by anyone has been my problem, particularly when attempting fiction, as I’m constantly worried about what image of myself I might be projecting onto the world; this is corrupt and dishonest writing. Are we guilty of this to an extent on the blog? But we have kept our anonymity. Nevertheless, the question of the very purpose of the blog has been kept open throughout our time on the blog. Is this a problem? Are we to decide upon or even discover some sort of essence to our activity? And here we are again, tempted to measure and justify, falling back into the trap of putting a price on our writing, viewing it in terms of value judgments. This is our biggest flaw. This is our biggest flaw! What do we want, then? We’re inspired by Blanchot’s communism. We wish to write and act for a community, and for that community to do the same for us. We want our thoughts to be read by others, not so that we may be admired and applauded, but as part of an endless free exchange of thought and ideas; because we desire to be read by others just as much as we would like to read their thoughts. We desire merely to have a perpetual opening of possibilities, a never-ending stretching of our horizons, and an incessant blurring of the lines of friendship. To be not in competition (this primitive survival instinct surely must be overcome, that is to say, subdued to a certain degree of restraint or even mastery), but to help each other realise our fullest potential and extract as much joy in wonder out of this life, whatever this may mean (I realise these last few points raise a host of ethical questions, which I will not deal with here). This, to us, can include the exchange of music, literature, abstract thought and whatever else we feel like. Our community can be open to anyone.
This is an impossible future, a messianistic belief, in Derridean terms. It will forever remain in the realm of the ‘to come’, never realised, yet perhaps ‘barely possible’. This ethic of a pure exchange of knowledge or ideas is what friendship or a Blanchotian community must surely be based on. What we desire is the impossibility of pure trust and sharing – pure co-operation. And so, to answer the aforementioned question: is our indecisiveness regarding the nature of our activity a problem? No. For our activity is grounded in having no grounding, its essence is the activity itself which may never come to an end. And yet, along the way to an impossible future may lie some truly wonderful moments.

Untitleable

Here I am again, at writing’s departure point, writing’s beginning, and yet I see again that it has already begun, begun before its beginning, before its time, “A beginning anterior to all beginnings”. It has begun because it never begins, nor does it ever end – it always is. Always, because it is eternity, and eternity because it is only ever eternal repetition, always repetition. To return, time and time again, to that same point from which I never depart in the first place. Time and time again, yet it is beyond time itself. Time and time again return to that same starting line – that line which is never there in the first place, which always eludes me; the line I only become aware of once I’ve started running, once I’ve crossed it, as I catch myself running, never myself starting to run. And sometimes it morphs, always it morphs, it becomes the finishing line and I am drawn back toward it. But here in writing’s expanse, in writing’s space, death’s space, these distinctions carry no weight. This is the space of eternal differentiation and incessant merger. I run neither away from the starting point nor towards the finishing line. Here there is only one point, and all one can do is circle it, revolve endlessly, not drawing nearer because one cannot draw further away either. And at that, one does not revolve as an act, but rather is given to the inertia of an orbiting satellite, to stagnation and impossibility. The more I read Blanchot the more I feel that Blanchot is the only way to write, that Blanchot is writing par excellence. Yet I feel that now I write only in an inability to write; that ‘truth’ can only be written in error, only in failure, can only be spoken in silence as it is only heard in silence. And what is truth to us? By using that word I become a utilitarian traitor, a liar. One can only, must only, write error.
“I need weed”, I thought to myself. So much time without an idea. How does anyone ever manage to write without drugs? They don’t, they only think they do. And yet, what’s the use of using drugs? To write the same all over again? To never begin anew, but “to begin all over again”? And in the end… Discover that there is no end. Nevertheless, as I sat in my trusty rocking chair – that sturdy rocking chair which hasn’t let me down yet, which hasn’t broken like the last one – I got the urge. Why, why does it always come as I’m reading? –‘Write’. –‘But I’m reading. No, I’m sick of you. I won’t write.’ –‘Write’. I go on reading, but it’s hopeless now. The words fall away from the page; not a single one enters my mind. All I can think of now is this urge to write. The tingling sensation is getting worse and worse, and the leg begins to shake again. I read the paragraph again, I make another effort – nothing. –‘Bollocks!’ Impatience. And perhaps this is what Blanchot spoke of – not only the need for patience once one has started writing, patience not to try and term the interminable, but to patience not to begin writing, not to grab hold of what has already begun itself within you, without you. Patience to prolong and defer writing as if it were an orgasm. Patience not to reach an end. And even this patience is insufficient on its own – it is only significant when it contains within it impatience, when it holds an inevitable impatience at bay. Allow ideas to ferment. Who knows, we’ll see… Writing, only ambiguously. Anyone else is a liar.