I wondered so endless, life filled with sin,
I wouldn't let my dear saviour in,
Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night,
And praise the lord, I saw the light!
I saw the light! I saw the light!
No more darkness, no more night,
Now I'm so happy, no sorrow in sight,
Praise the lord! I saw the light!
Hank Williams. Died January 1st, 1953
I walked home drunk. I was more drunk than I thought I was when I'd left the pub. Safe to say that when you're drunk you walk. You walk, and if you're lucky, you think. What do you think about? Unhappy thoughts, for the most part. Ugly thoughts. Wretched thoughts. But you think, and no more. There's no point in describing environmental details. Your environment doesn't occur to you when you're walking home drunk. It doesn't happen to you. So there's no point in going into the usual descriptions of my surroundings at the time; that would be superfluous. My life consists of what happens in it, and what happens in my life depends on what my mood allows. I sit in my room, and that's all that happens. But so much more happens! Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts go through me. Some pleasant, some less pleasant, all of them involuntary. And so my life happens. It happens, and it will cease from happening when I cease from thinking. When thinking ceases from happening. Thinking happens to me, so much more than sitting in that cheap rocking chair in the corner. So much more than sitting... Ah, but one is always aware of future possibilites, and of those future possibilities as part of a unity of life along with the past and present. But in so far as those thoughts occur to me they happen to me. Life is that which happens to me.
On the way home I walk along the quayside. It's a longer route but it raises my spirits. I choose not to walk through the urban shortcut into town. Walking through the quayside fools me into feeling safe, into feeling that there's a nice side to this world. A glaring searchlight is beaming at the quaside with no distinct pattern, like a headless chicken. It gets me, then it gets me again. I'm not running away from you, I want your control. Suddenly I hear the words: I saw the light! I saw the light! No more darkness, no more night. Could it be? I can't be that drunk, though the line between dream and reality is momentarily blurred by surprise and aided by alcohol. Hank is singing! Oh, Hank, you never saw the light any longer than the effect of your pills lasted. And when you sang to me of the light, you showed me even more darkness. The sound of Hank Williams was blowing from a nearby nightclub to the sight of a kaliedoscopic projection alongside the opposite building's wall. Quite why it was playing, I don't know. That scene made no sense, and being drunk certainly didn't help me make any more sense of it. It's his greatest song - jubilant, unrestrained, desperate, submissive, filled with pain, redemptive and pious. All at the same time. Indeed, it is the kind of jubilation and redemption reserved only for the pious. If there was ever a thing worth saying, a sentiment worth expressing, a pain worth crying - don't bother. Hank Williams has said it before. He's said it better than you ever could. The truth of his words is not in their complexity - he was too rough for that. Rough but not crude, as so many mistakenly impute to him. The truth of his words resonates through the unmistakeable pain in his voice. If you don't hear his pain you haven't heard pain in your life. And Hank Williams knew all about pain. Sometimes I think his life consisted of nothing but pain, with every song sung and pill taken being just a momentary respite from his troubles, of which chronic back problems of unimaginable pain was probably the least. Legend has it that Hank used to buy a new guitar every week because he would smash them on opponents heads during fights. His money was spent on pills, alcohol and cheap guitars. Heidegger, don't you know that anxiety doesn't visit you once? Once it visits, it will visit you again and again and again, and each time will be emptier than the last. The beauty of the song, its achievement, is in its ability to communicate to me the pain of life and the transcendant redemption it can offer. Not for me, though. Not for us. We've crossed that line long ago. But maybe, just maybe, I can feel it, just for 3 minutes through the great voice of a great musician. After Hank only silence is worthy. Rest in peace, Hank Williams.
Thursday 30 November 2006
Sunday 26 November 2006
On Clarity
To ask a banal question - why do we write? But this query is not banal, it may be as important to one who writes as the question of the meaning of Being is to a human-being according to Heidegger, for it is at the heart of what we do - on this blog for example. It IS what we do. So how can we not ask this question?
We've been studying Heidegger on the course lately, and, inevitably, the question of authenticity has been on my mind the whole time. It has, in fact, preoccupied me for the past few years (as is the case with my fellow students, I feel), as well the the question of writing. More than a question, an obsession. I write even when I don't know why I write anymore. It started out with an attempt to make sense of and record philosophical ideas and assumptions, and slowly worked its way to its current state, in which I find myself recording every minute feeling that I observe, criticising every book, film and album that comes my way, keeping a diary - and for what? I still don't know. The only thing I can say is that I can't stop; I have to keep writing. Perhaps it's reached an unhealthy degree. It certainly has been getting in the way of course work. For a while I thought that I (and secretly everyone) write in the hope of becoming a good writer in the eyes of others. But what does it mean to be a good writer? Let's not go into that now. I know now that this is not the case. I don't even find myself dedicating much time to writing stories or prose anymore. I'm concerned with writing on a much more personal level.
So is it authenticity that I look for in writing? Is writing a means to authenticity? And assuming it is, how can it lead me to authenticity? Can it mislead me? Can it damage? A fork may be a tool, a means to eating, but I can also stab myself in the eye with it. My writing, it would seem upon superficial inspection, has progressed on a straight line from an inability to express my sentiments with precision, difficulty in putting my finger on precisely what it was that I felt, what it was that I liked or disliked about things, what made me feel uncomfortable for no apparent reason, to a sense of eloquence and articulation. A sense of clarity. But what does this word mean? Clarity - to clear, to remove an obstacle, a veil, an illusion. The Hebrew word used to describe clarity of speech or writing is 'Tzakh', which also means purity, and is used to describe the morning air, particularly after a thick and rainy night, a smouldering night. An air that's been relieved of its weight, an air that's breathed effortlessly. Am I to understand that the practice of writing, of self-exploration through writing, is analogous to the clearing of the air, the receding rain? But has writing become my torch? Am I now able to point the way to that which I wish to see, or more, to that which I wish to feel? What is IT? IT seems to deflect illumination, it's always vague, like a face in a dream. IT seems centrifugal - I always revolve around IT, circling IT, never quite touching IT. Never speaking IT. IT won't allow itself to be spoken. Perhaps a notion of self, or even authenticity, demands a measure of unknowing?
What is it I think I'm articulating ,anyway? Am I ever nearer the end? Is articulation ever anything more than the elaboration of language? The elaboration of an illusion? Perhaps attempts at direct articulation are bound to fail; a ship that never leaves the dock. And I wonder, can literature and poetry not communicate to us that which we strive to understand, and does it not succeed precisely because of its indirectness?
We've been studying Heidegger on the course lately, and, inevitably, the question of authenticity has been on my mind the whole time. It has, in fact, preoccupied me for the past few years (as is the case with my fellow students, I feel), as well the the question of writing. More than a question, an obsession. I write even when I don't know why I write anymore. It started out with an attempt to make sense of and record philosophical ideas and assumptions, and slowly worked its way to its current state, in which I find myself recording every minute feeling that I observe, criticising every book, film and album that comes my way, keeping a diary - and for what? I still don't know. The only thing I can say is that I can't stop; I have to keep writing. Perhaps it's reached an unhealthy degree. It certainly has been getting in the way of course work. For a while I thought that I (and secretly everyone) write in the hope of becoming a good writer in the eyes of others. But what does it mean to be a good writer? Let's not go into that now. I know now that this is not the case. I don't even find myself dedicating much time to writing stories or prose anymore. I'm concerned with writing on a much more personal level.
So is it authenticity that I look for in writing? Is writing a means to authenticity? And assuming it is, how can it lead me to authenticity? Can it mislead me? Can it damage? A fork may be a tool, a means to eating, but I can also stab myself in the eye with it. My writing, it would seem upon superficial inspection, has progressed on a straight line from an inability to express my sentiments with precision, difficulty in putting my finger on precisely what it was that I felt, what it was that I liked or disliked about things, what made me feel uncomfortable for no apparent reason, to a sense of eloquence and articulation. A sense of clarity. But what does this word mean? Clarity - to clear, to remove an obstacle, a veil, an illusion. The Hebrew word used to describe clarity of speech or writing is 'Tzakh', which also means purity, and is used to describe the morning air, particularly after a thick and rainy night, a smouldering night. An air that's been relieved of its weight, an air that's breathed effortlessly. Am I to understand that the practice of writing, of self-exploration through writing, is analogous to the clearing of the air, the receding rain? But has writing become my torch? Am I now able to point the way to that which I wish to see, or more, to that which I wish to feel? What is IT? IT seems to deflect illumination, it's always vague, like a face in a dream. IT seems centrifugal - I always revolve around IT, circling IT, never quite touching IT. Never speaking IT. IT won't allow itself to be spoken. Perhaps a notion of self, or even authenticity, demands a measure of unknowing?
What is it I think I'm articulating ,anyway? Am I ever nearer the end? Is articulation ever anything more than the elaboration of language? The elaboration of an illusion? Perhaps attempts at direct articulation are bound to fail; a ship that never leaves the dock. And I wonder, can literature and poetry not communicate to us that which we strive to understand, and does it not succeed precisely because of its indirectness?
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