Exhaustion

I have worked so hard lately, all I want to do now is actively distance myself from anything that might even remind me of the idea of work. I sat in my room, then, with nothing to do. What to do, what to do? Do not! Don't do! Do nothing. So I began to read a novel that's been lying half-read on my nightstand for months. But I could not be absorbed by the reading, the way reading demands one to give up himself and denounce mastery, to be soaked into it like wine into the carpet, like vapour trickling upwards into the ceiling, stealthily, unawares. Instead the book merely succeeded in awakening in me a passion for reading; I became excited about the idea of reading, and as soon as this happened I could no longer read. I got the urge to go through my pile of unread books and decide which ones I would read this summer. I put a bookmark in each, and so felt as if something had been done, a decision had been taken. As I climbed off the chair I'd just used to reach my books, I noticed it was next to the bed, where I always placed it whenever I studied these past few months. Should I sit in the chair and read the novel? I wondered. But the very idea of sitting in the chair reminded me of working, so I sat on the bed instead, and for all the discomfort this brought could not bring myself to sit in the chair. I need a break from that chair and the chair needs a break from me. It was then that I began to write these lines, which I am still writing now. How long has it been since I'd experienced the joy of writing? I've written a lot lately, enough to fill a small book. Yet even though I've been writing good stuff, interesting stuff, it hasn't been a complete pleasure; it was calculated writing, writing with a purpose. How long had it been since I'd written anything spontanaeously? joyously? when was the last time I was surprised by writing? I realise now why I've been so lax in the past with self-discipline; I was afraid. Afraid that I'd be closing off the possibility of ideas visiting me. Ideas will come even in strictness, but they will struggle and wear out along the way. One can't force thought; he may try, but in doing so will only push it further away. This is not the place to remain concentrated, to stop yourself from being distracted - this is the place of constant distraction, constant yet inconsistent. If you find the impetus of writing waning, allow it to wane, fiddle with something else, though never too far away from your pen and never too seriously. Soon enough the urge to write will return, as soon as you are absorbed by the other activity. Why? Because writing only occurs as a distraction, a distraction from a distraction ad infinitum.

Authenticity - reply to previous post

That's interesting, I've been thinking a lot about authenticity again lately. I understand the problems philosophers like Blanchot, Levinas and Derrida have with this notion, and I agree with them to an extent. After all, we can't assume that there's some unified 'self' to Dasein, hidden under the veil of the they-self, and which offers Dasein the possibility of being present to itself. I remember that for the Heidegger essay I tried to write against the elitism that can be interpreted from this notion of authenticity after a few people on the course started saying that some people are just 'inauthentic' (in the Heideggerian sense that they're not in control of their own thoughts and decisions). How can we fight such a claim? It seems to me that the very nature of inauthenticity requires that one not be aware of his own inauthenticity. I mean, how can I ever know whether I'm inauthentic or not? No one ever thinks they're inauthentic, because to recognise oneself as inauthentic is the very moment of "breaking free" from inauthenticity and into authenticity. Yet, at the same time, it appears that in order for one to be authentic, he must be aware of his own inauthenticity. The moment he's no longer aware of a trace of inauthenticity still present in him, he can no longer know whether he's authentic or not. Therefore it seems that we have a Derridean aporia here: one must be inauthentic in order to be authentic! Authenticity is impossible without the coexistence - in the same Dasein - of inauthenticity. Perhaps we can say that inauthenticity is the impossible limit of authenticity? There can be no clear cut distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity. So perhaps there's still room for thinking about authenticity? Maybe we shouldn't discard it so disdainfully. I still do think Heidegger was on to something there, and though he may have taken it in the wrong direction it's up to us to reappropriate it. Let's give authenticity some more thought.