23 April 2007, From Major Social Theories

Something must be said for journal writing, so consider this my first entry. As every beginning should have a mission statement, let this be mine: to record every detail of significance, as often as it may occasion, and to obey them. If I cannot obey the insight provided by such a detailed account, I have no leg on which to stand.

It is only with despair that I describe the conditions of that gruesome future: to teeter-taater around on your ass, or walking on your hands--hands that have become feet and thus must be taught to write all over again, and therefore also must be severed--crossing a busy street, your small frame barely enough to warn the onrushing motorcycles, a monster in the night begging for money. Such a mode of self-transportation (-representation) results usually in the elongation of the fingers and the widening of the palms.

(Could I perhaps be a writer? It is an interesting question, but sadly not my own. If thirty years from now I am a writer, does that mean that I am now a writer? Is it possible that I am a writer now, but not in the future? I feel much more like nothing. For example: Hi, I'm a doctor!, or, yes, I'm a gynecologist. In German the idea is stronger still. I'll remain a mystery to myself, but I'm sure I'll never 'be' anything, although I might talk like I am: "Hi, I'm a writer," I might say. But instead I'll just be as I ever was, maybe never even read!)

It would be a mistake to believe IT to be a great sadness--such romances are no longer ours. The only romance is estrangement, and, its shadow, the child, the home. Wipe your eyes then. Many before you have disobeyed their parents. It's no great loss--don't cry.

An abundance of blank pages--purchased at what price?--means an overabundance of truly mediocre writing. This is however the truth of our age: we write desperately (if we write), and mostly unsuccessfully, in order to be estranged--that is, in order to compose ourselves on the page, to be composed there, and so to escape ourselves, and to save ourselves from ourselves, which cannot be controlled or tolerated. 'I' speak from the page--"I" spoke the page. "Listen, I am more real than you, even though I have no name. Indeed such only confirms all the more my identity. It is of loss that I speak: I am nameless. Come home to me, fill yourself up with me, and I'll have many names!" But the page fills only slowly and, now more than ever, it is quantity more than quality that matters, although even that is quickly losing its value. One begins more or less confident, but is eventually crushed by the combined forces of theory and speculation. At first one is intrigued, until their vapors solidify and become the truth! And, as a light goes off in one great city, so goes on one in another, but this other is deep underground, as of yet undiscovered, even perhaps the future habitation of all man kind, and also the sedimentary stone upon which the first city is built. A novel, it is readily admitted, must be of a certain length. This, therefore, is no novel. It might, at best, be a symptom of the novel's death, and for this I claim no responsibility (I am but humbly a bad instance). A new novel is nevertheless born-- a new, shorter novel. "I am only the desire of one who was once a living, breathing one. A desire to write. Kiss me! Smell my pages. Weep on me; (for) I am your desire too!"