17. ~~~~~~~~~~

I come to this again and again, and it seems still not often enough: the act of writing for oneself is always compromised by the fact that it is a medium, and therefore could communicate to others. Like playing music "for myself". It seems simple to put thoughts into words, an act which alone makes it possible to know our thoughts (I’m on the side of those who say we can’t think without words--if thinking is an act at all rather than vague feelings, then it is at least a movement to articulate). But even in the most private writing, each page of which is afterwards tossed away without regret, there is something communicated from the self to the self, however momentarily, selves which are by the very act of such communication distanced, other to each other. What is other to me can also be other to those who are not me. And as soon as I realize the huge difficulty I would have in destroying my writing I know that I am seeking to go outside myself to these others. They have come inside this self, I have let them into the most hidden places I nurture. Suffering seeks to be known; the voice may cry in the wilderness, or the falling tree in the “empty” forest, but someday will resonate in some ear somewhere. Even the most cynical writing has this hope, this poverty.

How can we possibly know, or feel secure that we know, the value of what we do apart from some relation to others? Is there anything sad about that?

The question then is, where is the stopping point of that security, how far do we have to go to feel our act is complete. The human (and this is a Western concept, so it refers only to the dominant humans, the problematic ones, those spreading their seed) is the being that cannot finally be done with anything. Now that I have done this, what do I do with it? Who will it touch, what will it move, where will it go, etc.? Every act embodies its goal, and the goal is meaningless without a series of goals that stretch into the infinite future, not just of oneself but ultimately of the whole human race. We are embedded in a context that stretches from past to future, but at each point looking around to find what is our fit with others. Continuity seems to be our distinctive task, to triumph over discontinuity, perhaps after reveling in it. Each is coextensive with the whole, each of us looks over our collective shoulder at all the others to know who we are, what is our effect. How is my driving--call this number and let someone else know, since by myself I cannot. The idea that I can have my goals separate from what others do or want is the necessary illusion. My act is always incomplete therefore, both because it needs the context of other acts to define it and it needs the other to confirm it. And all solutions are temporary, contingent.

Fear has to be seen in this context. To escape fear we can only create a real or imagined environment of trust, which we call love. Self-love gives us continuity with all our acts; other-love gives us continuity with others. Fear, in its many forms, is the absence of this, or one might say the realization of the truth that love, continuity, is always constructed, an endless work of rebuilding what wants to fall apart. Fear is our natural condition that we seek to deal with, to alter. After mother-love everything is downhill, or at least an uphill struggle, so the pessimistic analyst tells us. It may be the other way around, that love is the reality and fear the illusion, or false belief, but this does not appear to have been the viewpoint of human beings up to the present. Fear--disjuncture, loss, suffering--seems the normal inclination; love--coherence, continuity, meaning--is the project we must undertake that goes against that grain.

Where this excursus begins is with the question of writing, whether it is possible truly to write, or by extension to think, for or by oneself. Or act in any way in one’s life. And the answer is no, and must be strongly affirmed. It is not possible to finish anything, there is always the extension to other acts, which are problematic, and to other people. Everything we do is contextual, and this would be fine if we had a choice, but since we don’t we are compelled to choose and decide against the objective situation: what do I want. I can do this superficially, like cruising the shelves of desires, or surfing the net. Or I can turn towards what comes from the deepest layers of my self. Who am I, in the light of this infinite continuity with others, seems a foolish question and so is embattled. I go to this inner space, this place of solitude, where I am supported by no one and defend myself against no one, where I can stare in the face my desires to be who I am. This space does not exist, it is not included among existents. It is not a human space, because it does not link me to others, does not help me in my troubles, has no reason, no function, try as I might to give it one.

I stop here with a jolt, as I realize that to round off this thought would be the kind of “good form” in writing that I refuse, offering something to a reader that will complete the process….

p.s. The arrival of this very text to this place illustrates the dilemma of public versus private writing that I keep buzzing around, the unfinished question. It was written originally in my journal for my own “process”, as they say in therapy, then became an object trouvé when I opened the file six months later, which I now publish in this public form. Part of postmodern culture is the disappearance of the truly (not even “hidden”) private, and it comes about by my own hand—I am one of the assassins of the private in myself, and I seem to advocate it even as I lament. Yet the choice to cross the threshold into the public sphere vacillates between two poles: to present what one wants to see accepted by others and be rewarded by this, and to simply make available one’s self-thought, without the attachment to seeing oneself mimed in others or paid for the effort. It is the latter, a reckless move, which some might say provides me with an excuse for contributing to this destruction. Inevitably one could interpret is “released” (as they say of recordings) as merely that portion of my private world that I think is somehow discourse suitable for the world, self-censored. This is a dilemma that I would present as suitable, the very trap of advocacy. Can we parent our self-thought, bring it to ourselves and into the world as one birth, without it re-presenting ourselves in a world of representations, and without us as parents agonizing over its fate? This is an open question, for I am constantly seeking to discover how I am surreptitiously being rewarded, ego-involved. If there is an I behind every we of available discourse, as I claim, then there is an attachment I can ferret out and articulate.  ¶ 8:03 AM 0 comments