Friday, 15 June 2007
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.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
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.
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
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.
“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.
Sunday, 7 January 2007
A post about nothing
This is getting to be a real problem. I read something and am immediately caught by the urge to write, when I should be reading and doing work. Why is it I only feel inspired to write or play music when I should be doing something else? That's why I can't finish reading my books. Good writing is too inspiring. Here I am, 24, and nothing has changed. I'm still the lazy waster I always was. The worst thing is that it doesn't look like it's gonna change any time soon.
I've always tried to find out what it is that typifies our generation, for it seems that there's something to be said about every generation. So what is it that typifies ours? Our generation is characterised by its emptiness. By its struggle and utter inability to cope with its nothingness, its meaninglessness. It's hard to get out of bed in the morning. It's always warmer under the sheets, and there's very little outside that's worth giving up that comforting warmth for. Everyone I know is a waster. Those who are not wasters I don't want to know. My housemate is watching Gordon Ramsey in the next room. He's not a waster. He's 18 and has a full time job working almost 15 hours each day. He knows what he wants from the future and doesn't have to worry about uncertainty. He makes me sick and I can't stand to spend any time with him. P. came over for new year's. He, too, is a great waster. As great as me. 'Greater', he would probably insist. He's been unemployed for almost a year. I think that's his greatest achievment, as well as the most endearing one in my eyes. 'We're better than them', he assures me. 'Why?', 'Because they're monkeys! At least we're interested in films and music and literature, and we can still laugh at Spongebob and Ren & Stimpy!'. 'But look at some of these people. They wouldn't be caught dead with us.'
That's why we always end up in dingy shitholes at the end of every night instead of at some classy nightclub. And what's more, we love it that way. That's the only place where we can be happy at the end of a night of drinking, when we're too pissed to stop our eyeballs from oscillating wildly, unable to fix on anything, and are so slow that we must help eachother complete our sentences. We're content with being here at the end of the night, surrounded by these middle-aged wrecks who attend nightly, carried inside on their own powerlessness to help themselves. This is where these women belong. This is their lair, where they like to inspect whatever unlucky young creature happens to wander in. It is the web, and they the spiders, returning for leftovers. Well, you can't have any of this meat, you old hags! I'm just here to watch. you intrigue me. Why do you all have such interesting stories? 'I'm raising my girl to be proud of her Geordie heritage. 'Cos it's a dying dialect, you know?'. 'If I had my roots in you', I think to myself, 'I wouldn't have much to be proud of'.
So we eventually leave the bar and make out way towards the studios behind the Cluny. We'd been told there was a party taking place there. 'As if they'll let us in. I've told you, P., we're not good enough for those kind of places!'. We walk up the steps and I ring the bell. 'Hello?', says a voice. 'Hi, I was told to come to the party'. 'By who?', 'Harry'. The voice consolts someone in the background and returns with a verdict. 'Sorry, don't know any Harry'. 'But you must know Harry! Everyone knows Harry!'. Thus ends another night of nothing.
I've always tried to find out what it is that typifies our generation, for it seems that there's something to be said about every generation. So what is it that typifies ours? Our generation is characterised by its emptiness. By its struggle and utter inability to cope with its nothingness, its meaninglessness. It's hard to get out of bed in the morning. It's always warmer under the sheets, and there's very little outside that's worth giving up that comforting warmth for. Everyone I know is a waster. Those who are not wasters I don't want to know. My housemate is watching Gordon Ramsey in the next room. He's not a waster. He's 18 and has a full time job working almost 15 hours each day. He knows what he wants from the future and doesn't have to worry about uncertainty. He makes me sick and I can't stand to spend any time with him. P. came over for new year's. He, too, is a great waster. As great as me. 'Greater', he would probably insist. He's been unemployed for almost a year. I think that's his greatest achievment, as well as the most endearing one in my eyes. 'We're better than them', he assures me. 'Why?', 'Because they're monkeys! At least we're interested in films and music and literature, and we can still laugh at Spongebob and Ren & Stimpy!'. 'But look at some of these people. They wouldn't be caught dead with us.'
That's why we always end up in dingy shitholes at the end of every night instead of at some classy nightclub. And what's more, we love it that way. That's the only place where we can be happy at the end of a night of drinking, when we're too pissed to stop our eyeballs from oscillating wildly, unable to fix on anything, and are so slow that we must help eachother complete our sentences. We're content with being here at the end of the night, surrounded by these middle-aged wrecks who attend nightly, carried inside on their own powerlessness to help themselves. This is where these women belong. This is their lair, where they like to inspect whatever unlucky young creature happens to wander in. It is the web, and they the spiders, returning for leftovers. Well, you can't have any of this meat, you old hags! I'm just here to watch. you intrigue me. Why do you all have such interesting stories? 'I'm raising my girl to be proud of her Geordie heritage. 'Cos it's a dying dialect, you know?'. 'If I had my roots in you', I think to myself, 'I wouldn't have much to be proud of'.
So we eventually leave the bar and make out way towards the studios behind the Cluny. We'd been told there was a party taking place there. 'As if they'll let us in. I've told you, P., we're not good enough for those kind of places!'. We walk up the steps and I ring the bell. 'Hello?', says a voice. 'Hi, I was told to come to the party'. 'By who?', 'Harry'. The voice consolts someone in the background and returns with a verdict. 'Sorry, don't know any Harry'. 'But you must know Harry! Everyone knows Harry!'. Thus ends another night of nothing.
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Hank Williams' Light
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.
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.
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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