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Editor of Logos, an online journal of society and culture.
Lives in New Jersey.
Won't eat frozen vegetables.
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Wednesday, December 17
Above all else, I despise inequalities. I do not mean only of the economic variety--for that leads to other forms of inequity--but the most mundane and obvious kinds. The big stuff I deal with in my writings in social science and philosophy. The other I deal with everyday and respond with the most deeply rooted emotion of disgust.
I seriously believe that--as I have said before in this blog--that the modern office is a place of the most pre-liberal (and by that I mean feudal) kind of inequality between us. This is not a matter of property or money, it is one of privilege and power. Management--even if they do not like one another personally--will cultivate a sense of cohesion among themselves in order to keep some kind of structural order of power relations between "us and them." They are the most petty of minds, not seeing that the power of democratic forms of organization are in the ways that information is communicated and a sense of involvement is nourished. They hold on to these positions of power so tightly because their interest is more in their psyche than in the broader concerns of the organization. Indeed, this was the essence of C. Wright Mills' great analyses of white collar culture, but it is no less true today than it was 50 years ago: management sucks, they wield too much power over those who do actual work and their daily lives, and produce more inefficiency than efficiency, all out of a sense of privilege that they seek to protect.
I despise it, and I despise those who--like sycophant boot-lickers--go along with it out of fear, a sense of aspiration or, even worse, because it is the very logic of "what is." I will fight this, and I will never let this change my will, bend my sense of real duty to what is right--both for me and the larger purposes of my work--and I will never submit.
Hence my brief manifesto. Let others take it to heart and join me. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Michael was existentially meandering at 12:37 PM \\
Tuesday, December 16
I suppose that there is ample reason to believe in the theory that, at least in its more colloqual phrasing, is known as "what goes around, comes around"; or, even better and more provincial, "the chickens coming home to roost." But I can say that this is not the case more often than not: suffering from bad luck is not something that I think is adequate to explain the vagaries of our unhappy existence. (For those of you whose existence is, by your own admission or, perhaps, delusion, one of self-described happiness, I think you are fooling yourselves.)
But back to the matter at hand. I am no longer willing to accept that I have bad luck or that there is some cosmic force willing or otherwise to steer my course toward any kind of misfortune. I need to rediscover the self-willed autonomy of my pre-office working days. I need to see that this world is all what I make of it, and that this whole situation is a matter of my own submission to a petty mind-set that has its roots in the ancient past of human social organization.
Reading Kafka can be such a splendid experience. Readers among you may recall his "In the Penal Colony" where a condemned man is about to be put to death by a huge machine that will ornately inscribe--via the incision of thousands of tattoo needles--the words: "obey authority" onto his back until he is killed. Such is the fate of those of us in the midst of this iron cage of modern existence--of cubicles, subway cars and one hour lunches. What, to borrow a phrase from Buber, paths to utopia do we have before us? I know only expression--art. Philosophy has become tiresome to a certain degree; a curious and always stimulating endeavor, but never fulfilling at a deeper level. Art can do this, however, and I am rediscovering this all the time through my poetry and music.
Perhaps I'll put some on this blog in the near future. For now, I am more content with contemplating the reality of creativity and the powerful sense of freedom it unleashes.
Michael was existentially meandering at 12:22 PM \\
Monday, December 15
An odd sense of tranquility, of calmness, has come over me. I have to say that this is not one of resignation, but of a deicded sea change of direction in my life-course. I am simply not made for this office environment. I am not designed for its pettiness, for its narrowness of mind and the conformity that it breeds. This has been the source of so much angst in my life, but now I see that I need to recalibrate my efforts and my vision. I will leave this place, as soon as I am able and will never look back.
But there is even more to this than that. I found myself--and have been finding myself as of late--in a very creative state of mind. Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk in study when I found that I was unable to quell this feeling of repressed excitement that I was experiencing. I realized that I was thinking about music, that I had a sombre piece of music for strings in my head that I was unable to shake. I began to write it out, to work it and develop it further. As I worked, I knew such bliss.
Later in the afternoon, I then found myself writing out some poetry, and I was astounded at the quickness with which it all came to mind. I ended the evening late composing a fugue in two parts and got remarkably far with that difficult endeavor.
Also, last night I received a phone call from a woman I had been "seeing" for the past couple of months. Things kind of fizzled, especially once I began to see how kind of emotionally messed up she can be and how emotionally selfish her tendencies were. No hard feelings, but I have lost interest in her. She called last night, obviously lonely and depressed, and I found myself talking to her to help her out. But I felt nothing more but distance from her. I could not bring myself to have those feelings of interest I had before. All part of this new orientation, this new tranquility.
I have thought for some time that the philosophy of Stoicism is truly the most humane and advanced that has ever existed. In its secularism, it is superior to the horrid and repugnant superstition of Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths; in its emphasis on the freedom of self-will, it is superior to Zen and Hinduism with their complete resignationism; and in its acceptance of the world (no, the universe) as an endless process beyond our control, it offers up a perspective that can calm and quell frustration at the contingent imperfections of life. I do not think that I can buy the entirety of Stoicism--my readings of Marx, Baudelaire, Nietzsche have seen to that. But I know that I can somehow carve out a place in this world of chaos, and create one in which I can feel oddly at home.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:35 AM \\
Friday, December 12
Nietzsche says in his Geneaology of Morals that a "slave revolt" or morality is needed. That in order to overcome the stultifying effects of mediocrity and unfreedom, we are to start not with politics, but with our moral assumptions about the world and our values. A "transvaluation of all values" is called for, and I must say that the more that I inhabit the mundane world of offices and leather-tongued petty-bureacrats the more I see this is absolutely true. Working in any capacity needs to be seen in context. I like to work. I like to create and study, write and read. I like to do things. But this is not the situation when one works in Kafkaesque world of the office life environment.
I have been thinking more and more about our quality of life as people, as people who work. Americans are the more rhetorically adamant when it comes to issues of "democracy," "liberty" and freedom from oppression. But do they not realize that they spend the majority of their daily lives in a situation of almost complete and utter servitude? This may sound like some kind of outlandish diatribe, but do not be so quick to judge me.
What I mean is more in the realm of the extent to which we have self-control over our lives. When Dante, in his De Monarchia, discusses the notion of freedom, he defines it as living one's life for one's own sake and not for the sake of another. I cannot say that the people I know--so many of whom work in offices for 9 to 12 hours per day--work for their own sake, but for the sake of another. I know what this sounds like, but consider this: the average office worker will live a life being underpaid, their personal life violated to the extreme--involuntary overtime is rampant and considered necessary in a wordl of weak if not non-existent unions--and where they are wholly beholden to the place that they work for fear of pissing someone off and endangering their job security.
I can say that only a transvaluation of our values can change this situation. I am not saying that those who really work--by which I mean grueling labor digging ditches or serving people in restaurants--fare any better, but worse. But the thing is we somehow feel as Americans that we have left the stage of capitalism where exploitation and alienation were the norm. We have not, it has simply become more covert, more obscure, but it is what it still is and will forever be: alienated labor which will result in the continued devaluation of humanism and the erosion of the dignity of all people.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:08 AM \\
Wednesday, December 10
I really have no idea what floats though the minds of others. This is no profound statement of epistemology, to be sure. I think sometimes about the lives of others and imagine what it must be like to be them. We all lack something and we all know it. We all know that somewhere there is this sense that--even the smallest iota--of what someone else possesses (whether it be in terms of looks or something as superficial as a handbag) is something that we would like for ourselves.
For me this is really not about items, but about apparent lifestyles. For the most part, those people I see everyday on trains and streets are common and do not evoke any sense of interest in me. At times, I think there is even an amazed wonder at how really trite some people's lives must be: the over-dressed wall street commuter from the burbs of Jers engrossed in the hardback of Lawrence Taylor's new autobiography (with co-author) seductively subtitled, Living On the Edge. Or, there is the younger, more disheveled taterdemallion-hipster knitting a scarf on the subway, no doubt trying to exploit another aspect of Darwinian biology by looking hip but still sufficiently effeminate to catch the more "interesting" female (or male) mate.
All in all, I tend to look around me and see not diversity in this "great" city of ours, but a rampant conformism. What is on the surface is merely that: surface. What is beneath is nothing more than what Heidegger appropriately called "das Man": a more elusive term for Nietzsche's notion of the "herd" instinct.
So be it, but I pray for my own cheerful science to keep me from such a fate. I think, however, that this itself carries with it a price. At times, however, it could perhaps be that it is more dear than the cost of selling out in the first place.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:25 AM \\
Monday, December 8
I am decidedly unconvincved by the seemingly ubiquitous thesis that male-female attraction is essentially based on anything that is reducible to one or two explanatory variables. One of the most interesting aspects about this kind of relationship is that men--who are truly less sophisticated than women in this regard--do require very little to be attracted to a woman (even though this very little may be very difficult for most women to achieve). I can say that, because this is the case, it is probably much easier for a man to be in love with a woman and say that he loves her than for a woman to do the same. The simple reason is that a woman needs to love more things about a man--or at least she puts more into that feeling--than a man does. This is not all that different from nationalism: it is easy to say have cheap nationalistic feelings for a country you don't live in (examples: certain ex-pats, some American Jews for Israel, etc.) than when you actually do live there, when things are more complicated and require more sophisticated involvement and investment.
But this is something I think does matter in the long run. I am prone to intellectualizing these things--it is a convenient and efficient, not to mention effective, defense mechanism against intimacy and emotional involvement. But, in the end, we are all at one time or another confronted with this sociological dilemma. I seem to be more and more prone to this weakness, and I cannot say that it has subsided over the years, irrespective of my efforts to quash it.
Nonetheless, dear reader, it is perhaps time that we all look one another with a more sophisticated glance; not judge one another by our superficialities. I suppose that this is more a function of our materialistic age, one that has progressed exponetially since the bourgeois 19th century. The fascination with accumulating "things" has seeped into our thinkning and feeling about other people, as well. I will not descend (ascend?--no, descend in this case) into a diatribe, but I will say this: there are times like this when I recall Pablo Neruda's insightful poem, "Walking Around." I will quote it here in full for your reading pleasure.
Walking Around
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse
sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.
That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the
night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist
houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic
shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:25 AM \\
Wednesday, December 3
Work has become such a mundane affair. Reading has been a nice diversion, to step into the world of words and narrative. Living has become such a mundane affair: the key question is to what extent is this truly bland existence worth the time and energy spent on it. I am feeling increasingly frustrated with the state of affairs. I am feeling more and more exhausted, but at the same time, more and more at ease. I cannot explain with any degree of real clarity the extent to which this dissonance rings in my ears--but there is also no question about something else: that conformity is the very end of any form of authentic existence, however starved of meaning and fulfillment it may in fact be.
This is no angered diatribe. I have, after all, said that I have been frustrated, not angry. I do not hate the world or the conditions within which I live. No, this would be too simple to solve. For the truly oppressed--i.e., in material terms--the overturning of the system is the only alternative, save the regression into resignation. In fact, we are too accustomed to thinking that barabarism is of this variety: that it is about economic and political oppression; that "democracy" and capitalism, abundance in material things and the like can harbor not even the smallest trace of barbarity or of cultural regression. Should I remind you, dear (and undoubtedly well-read) reader of Benjamin's infamous dictum that every document of civilization is at once a document of barbarism? Or even of Adorno's that any order that is self-proclaimed is nothing but a disguise for chaos?
I am not sure, but I do know that I have been balancing my psychic and emotional life by more "expression." I have decided to go back to studying composition and write music again. But this brings up even more--albeit, aesthetic--dilemmas. I can recall Baudelaire's statement that all art is to go against the grain and reveal the inner pain which we so dutifully ignore. But I really do not wish to wax into intellectualism; it is much better to compose one's art in a very different state of mind. I do not doubt this is why the musical compositions by, say, Hoffman, Nietzsche and even Adorno are so, well, mediocre: they did not allow their aesthetic self to be liberated from the intellectual self. I can see why this is more difficult in literature, but then again, it is not always beneficial in prose. But in music, it is essential.
As Nietzsche says: "Through music, the passions enjoy themselves." (BGE)
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:43 AM \\
Monday, December 1
I have been away from this blog for some time now, and have decided to return. The turmoil of the past month or so has been extreme, and I am not the lesser for it--but there is no question that the idea of reflection and of meditation has once again settled into its proper place in my psyche and in my daily routine.
I am now back to thinking about abstract, large issues. I have returned to thinking about the general orientation of my life, and things are not as bad as I have once imagined them to be. We can all relate to the neurosis of seeing what seems on the surface to be one's life literally falling apart, but when it actually has empirical referents in the world around you, then it is time to seriously take stock.
Now, I know that I have been far too dramatic for my own good, even though it did not seem that way at the time. But the deeper, more probing questions need to be scrutinized (I will not commit hubris by making an effort to answer them). So, I have returned to these cyber-pages once more in the hope for solitude and for comfort. But, I feel more and more as if the walls of time and duty are upon me; that there is little time for speculation and more time needed for actually "doing." Time is perhaps our greatest enemy in life, resembling that horrid god of old that would not drink his nectar but from the skulls of the slain.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:11 AM \\
Thursday, October 9
My own personal belief is that perception is constantly distorted by our subjectivity. What I mean is that whatever it is that we may be seeing--about ourselves, our feelings, others' feelings toward us, etc.--is generally nothing more than appearances, the signification of which cannot be determined with any kind of objective criteria.
I say this because I am seeing more and more how incorrect I have been about the way I have felt about myself and perceived myself. I am saying this because, quite franky, the subjective in us is very powerful; its graviational pull on our ability to construct self-knowledge is immense and its capacity to inflict harm equally so. But this also means that we are the only ones responsible for pulling ourselves out of a situation of pain and self-inflicted guilt. I cannot say that I am an optimist in this regard, but to recognize the very structure of self-consciousness is a step in the right direction.
I am tired and weary. I have become overextended and taxed beyond the bounds that sanity would permit. But I still seem to persevere. I think that the search for basic things is so futile now. I do not mean this in a negative, pessemistic way. I mean it in the sense that what we shoud be searching for are more fundamental values and ways of life that can facilitate the accumulation of "basic things" by which I mean a job, dwelling, a mate, etc. So this means that we need philosophy; we need to see things that other cannot. I do not mean this in an elitist way, I mean this in the sense that we need to probe the foundations of our being and to reinvent ourselves. In Nietzschean fashion, we need to philosophize with a hammer so that we can shatter the forms of life and thought that restrain us. They restrain us because we learn them early in life--from our parents, schools, our church/synagogue/mosque, our culture in general. No, we need to break free from the shackles of artificial self-control and artificial self-regulation and attain an autonomy that is premised on our creative abilities.
When will it happen that we can breath without the fatigue of conformism and transcend the bounds of the predicament that we have been hurled into without choice?
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:26 AM \\
Sunday, October 5
I have not written in this blog for some time because I have had neither time nor any real itnerest in externalizing whatever mass of feelings that have been pulsing through my psyche. But I have to say that even though many things have been happening these past few weeks, I essentially feel the same--and this is not as bad as I would have thought.
Whatever the case may be, I know that I am reaching a point in life when things need to radically transform. I am approaching a point where a fundamental paradigm shift will be the only remedy for the convulsions of emotion and intellectual frustration that have both, in turn, bound me to a life of existential angst and the very erosion of my Dasein. Yes, a bit dramatic, but the truth of the matter is, those that do not experience a certain degree of personal crisis on one's life course probably are not very interesting let alone worth one's time.
I do not know where things will lead, but I know more now than ever that my context is more important than I had previously thought. I do not think that the way I have been living these past several years was emotionally nor psychologically healthy, but I do know that the extreme self-examination that I performed in that time was extremely beneficial even if it did result in a perverse sense of self in the end.
The woman that I have been "seeing" these past few months has become--upon further examination and scrutinization--both more fascinating and more problematic. Although not for me. I think this is the one great improvement of my personal and emotional life: I have been able to see through emotionally unfocused bullshit in women and see that it is nothing I admire nor have time for. The again, I need to be careful of my feelings and to make sure that I keep reserved and calm--love, as the poets of old always tell us, is a dangerous thing.
So be it, but this brings to mind a thought: a wonderful verse from one of Handel's beautiful Italian song cycles:
No, do voi non vo'fidarmi,
cieco Amor, crudel belta!
Troppo siete menzogenere,
lusinghiere Deita.
Altra volta incatenarmi
gia poteste il fido cor
So per prova i vostri inganni,
due tiranni siete ogn'or.
[No, I will not trust you,
blind love and cruel beauty!
You tell too many lies,
alluring Deities.
Once before your fetters
bound my trusting heart.
Your wiles I have experienced,
know what tyrants you both are.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:00 PM \\
Sunday, September 14
To be poerfectly honest, I never intended to use this blog for my personal issues and feelings. I never saw the purpose of expressing such things to anyone else but myself. Things have changed. And I can say that things are changing in many other ways as well.
It is hard for me to think about anything else than what I have been feeling these past few weeks, and this gets progressively worse when I listen to Schubert--as I am now. But that is neither here nor there, as it were. Rather, I think that I have been disrupted; I feel that the inner peace that I once could claim sole ownership of has been corrupted. I think liking this woman that I've been seeing these past few weeks is getting to me in a way that I really do not like. I do not like my insecure feelings; I do not like this exposure; I do not like being in this position. We both said that we liked one another and we'd see where things go--but now I am of the opinion that this is not worth it and I'd like to simply get abck to my work. Then again, that has been leading me nowhere with respect to happiness.
This may all sound confusing, but I never like that period after claiming you both like one another--the uncertainty, the slight awkwardness with the fear of further rejection ratcheted up even more. I think that I need a palliative for all of this. I wish I had listed more closely to Ovid and his prescriptions for curing the pain of emotional attachment through nipping it in the bud. No, I decided to brave the course, and now it seems I have led myself into the dark abyss of emotional turmoil and infinite unrest.
Shame on what I have done! I hate myself for going against my own ethics. I am so dissapointed in myself and need to regroup now before this sinks into an even lower state of affairs.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:35 PM \\
Wednesday, September 10
Now I see that dealing with lonliness is a fine situation for me. I think that my life will need to be concerned with my work and my life projects. I think that I was mistaken about what I said in my last post to the extent that I was being misled about my feelings. Not that I was being misled by her, but I was being misled by my own feelings. I think that this needs to change. I think that this is something that I need to change with respect with to my perspective. I think I need to see that I should be focused on my work at the expense of my own capacity for happiness and self-sufficiency.
This ought not to mean anything else than I will need to rethink my recent actiities and feelings. Most of all a woman who I have been seeing in a weird way for some time. I need to reverse these tendencies and reverse what I have been feeling. Where to turn? To The Master, but also to Ovid's verse. I think that this is something I need to do and I can try to bring quietude to my tempestuous existence and bring solitude to a life of misery and irrevocable despair.
Michael was existentially meandering at 2:06 AM \\
Sunday, September 7
A woman I have known for some time is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened to me. She is so sweet and smart; she is intelligent and charming; she is beautiful; she is so interested in things. These past few weeks we have spent a lot of time together but I am still so confused about her and what I should do. I took her to the Logos salon--a monthly thing my magazine throws here in Manhattan--and she was a big hit. Not only did she like everyone there, but all the people close to me really liked her and thought she was awesome, which she is.
Tonight she called me and was out with this guy she says she is not in to. She called me about a half an hour ago and said she missed me. I think she was drinking and I am not sure what that means in this regard, but I felt the same way. I did miss her all day. We were together Friday and Saturday night and we ha da wonderful time. On Saturday, when I dropped her off, we kissed a couple of times and she snuggled next to me before leaving the cart and I kissed her on her head. It was so wonderful, it was bliss.
But is this drunken stupor? I think, as much as I would hate to admit this, that this is the case. She is escaping and sees me as an easy target. I am so depressed and upset that I am not attractive enough and good enough for her. I am upset with who I am--that I am so awkward and repulsive that I cannot engage her. I require solitude from now on. I need to be alone. I cannot deal with this kind of life.
I suppose that some of us find ourselves in this situation. Those of us that are so repulsive and unattractive to women that we have no choice but to be alone, and be bitter.
Michael was existentially meandering at 7:36 PM \\
Thursday, September 4
Are we all mad? Have we been led astray by ignorance and by hedonistic vice? Is the atomization of social life almost total in its affliction of anything valuable in human existence. Have we simply lost the ability to attain any kind of organic community in political and social life without sacrificing individuality and autonomy? Have we simply lost the vision of the Enlightenment to achieve the ultimate goal of social and political life: The descent of the city of god unto the city of men?
I can answer with the affirmative for all of the above. And, the more that I think about it, the more I realize that personal neuroses and "issues" are intimately bound up with our state of social alienation and cultural decay.
What gets me most aggravated is that the this discourse of cultural erosion and the flattening out of moral and social values in modernity is something over which the political right has somehow gained a monopoly. We ought not to forget that the very impetus of thinkers like Marx and Nietzsche was the very realization of what I too have listed above. We should remember that the very imeptus of philosophy and of social criticism has always been the improvement of the present state of society, both institutionally and morally.
I think that this is something that those that consider themselves "leftist" outght to be thinking about. They ought to be thinking less about narrow issues of protest and dissent and more about the political and cultural traiditions and values that the forefathers of their various movements sought to realize. There needs to be more of an enlightenment about the aspects of the Enlightenment that are so ignorantly and quite naively rejected.
So where so we go from here? I would prefer Plato's "Philebus" but there is no one left to turn to for a conversation.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:53 AM \\
Wednesday, September 3
Reflecting on the reality of the external world may be something reserved for philosophers and artists--although in a different vain. But I have come to realize that the ignorance we have about the inner thoughts and feelings of others is among the most problematic issues that anyone can face in one's life. I am thihking about this in a very concrete sense: in the sense that I am largely insensitive--and therefore largely unable--to comprehend the actions of others in somewhat cloe or intimate situations.
Now, I am referring to the recent events with a good woman friend that I have been aquainted with for some time now. I think that if I were able to know what she thought and felt--even in a confused and complex way--I would be much better at understanding how I should act and feel toward her. I am unable to manage this, however, because our pathetic human brains are very limited in their capacity for peering into another's thoughts. Be this as it may, I am unable to truly understand how I am to interact with women and this has become a confusing reality. The again, there are other issues at stake.
I have been thinking that philosophy--although no cure for severe personal ills--is still someting that can porovide us with a much broader speculative capacity and therefore a much larger frame of personal and intellectual reference. True, art serves a similar function, but the real conceptual core of reality can be obtained only through philosophy--i.e., through conceptual thought.
This is T. W. Adorno's great insight in his Negative Dialectics. Indeed, the problem's with this brilliant work are many, but it cannot be said that it is lacking in its philosphical advice. Perhaps I should remember the core lesson from this tome in its first line: "Philosophy persists because the possibility for its realization was missed." How true, indeed.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:47 AM \\
Tuesday, September 2
I wish so much that I could simply live a life with a good degree of calm and solitude. I no longer have any desire for anxiety, competition, despair, depression, self-doubt, worry and any other negative emotion that I have been living with for the past few years. I can see now that others live a life that is more laid back, more open to free time. I cannot say that I want to have nothing to do, but I do want to have more control over things.
My big question is whether or not this is something one can have in modernity. One is forced with the need in moder life to create something in order to escape the morass of this banal existence. I feel forced to create, to humanize myself through creation--intellectual, artistic, philosophical--it really does not matter. Whatever the case may be, I truly need some freedom from what I have created for myself. Let's see if I am able to achieve.
Michael was existentially meandering at 12:31 PM \\
Thursday, August 7
I have to say that I am quite honestly totally confused about my emotional state of mind when it comes to a woman that I have been interacting with these past few months. In many ways, I think that this confusion results from the fact that she consistently talks with me; she calls me quite frequently; asks me to go out and do things with her and sometimes with others, too; and she seems actually quite happy to talk with me.
I find it fascinating that this most simple emotion has no real linguistic signifier in English. After all, langauge as an institution evolved to do nothing other than allow us to express subjecive feelings and ideas. That aside, I find it curious that we are unable in a single word to distinguish between liking someone as in "I LIKE you better than the rest of the wretched rabble that occupy the earth," and "I LIKE you as in I think about you, am eager to learn more about you and become intimate with you." I suppose, in my case, this is fruitless discussion, but in objecive terms it does warrant some degree of reflection.
But I digress! Back to what I was saying before. You see I think these are most unusual traits for a woman to exhibit in my presence. Thus, I am forced to reflect as to the motivations for these encounters and herein lies the confusion. Let us say for the sake of argument that I realized that I had feelings for her. That I really did like her and that I was consumed with feelings about her. The first thing I would need to do in that case would be to analyze the reasons why. I would most likely find to root causes for these feelings: (i) she has reciprocated in some way feelings that I had for her; or (ii) I was simply fooling myself in feeling this way because I thought that she was reciprocating those feelings.
In the latter case--the more likely scenario--it would be the result of my own misinterpretation and misperception. I think that even though I do not like her like that, that the feelings that I do currently possess--which are that of emotional confusion--are the result of this malperception. You see, since I have not interacted with women in so many years and now, suddenly out of the blue, a very attractive and intelligent woman begins talking with me, I would be more prone to reacting not unlike a river that has burst its damming walls. But, dear reader, reason comes to my aid! I know there is no reason for this, and that such a situation is too good to be true. I know that there must be some motivation lurking beneath the fine surface of her sociability.
We talk on the phone quite a bit. She called me last night and was speaking to me until about 3:00am. Of course, I let this happen: partly because I was interested in the discussion, partly because I am typically unable to end conversations with people that I like and am not so comfortable with that I can simply say I need to go with any sort of abruptness. But I do not know why she keeps talking to me. My usually cynical view that she is a manipulator and seeks some form of gain from me--ineed, a violation of the Categorical Imperative and quite dispicable from any ethical point of view informed thereby--is still there is some form, but I know now that it is not explicitly instrumental.
Now, to attribute this to something malicious I have already dismissed. I think she is simply very nice and likes to talk with people. But I am working through these feelings and coming closer to truth. I think the other set of feelings that clash with these are those of self-hate--a self-hate for being so awkward, ugly and inadequate. I hate myself because when I do have feelings like that for another person as a result of my lot I am forced to be consumed by them and disrupted, plagued by the gnawing realization of my disjunction from others. I hate that I am this way and know that it cannot be otherwise, and I am capable of the most extreme self-hatred. For if I were to project it outward instead of inward, it would burn the skies to cinders.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:38 AM \\
Wednesday, August 6
Sometimes it is difficult to restrain the passions to the extent that one becomes, quite honestly, Dionysian. I cannot say that my usually restrained and quite calm composure is something that is natural to me. No, I think that I have been finding out these past weeks that this other person inside has been creeping his way out from under the bonds of servitude that I had placed it so long ago. I am not sure what is happening to me now, I can only say that it is something more like a revelation of being, of perception and of sense. Nietzsche says that through music, the passions enjoy themselves. But I now see that he means "music" in a metaphorical sense: in the sense that music is that abstract emotive/creative capacity within us that seeks to transform the world, to aestheticize it, as it were.
If all human energies were simply bound by ethical obligation and communal conscience, I should say that our life would be as boring as it is now where it is bound by egoism and self-annihilation in the face of alienation. The force that is creative in us--at least, as I feel it, in me--is something almost frightening. How do we focus it, control it? I have been so lax these many years in practicing some craft or another, a craft of art. I have let my music abilities lessen and almost diminish to the point of non-existence; I have let me writing go with the rare exception of poetry here and there to the point where my time can no longer be dedicated to that art which I once wrought with great profundity and with much prodigiousness.
Now I see I must create once more, I must go back to those old avenues of thought and crativity. Of course, this brings with it the untold woe of wrestling with the titans of the past. I recall the character of Salieri in Peter Schaffer's "Amadeus" where, so utterly convined of his mediocrity in the face of Mozart's genius, he defiantly burns a cross in his study, a symbol of that thing which he felt had bestowed upoin him the gift of musical composition.
I know if I pursue music once more that I will be thrown back into those depressive spells of my late teens and early twenties when I wrestled with the ghost of The Master and, in fate-like manner, lost. I suppose that such a level of genius is unattainable in our age, but that, alas, is another discussion. For now I must be content with my lot, in awe of his great genius and yearn for those powers that I will never possess. For had I his toungue and ears, I'd use them to crack the vaults of heaven.
Michael was existentially meandering at 8:54 AM \\
Tuesday, August 5
How could events be more different from 24 hours ago? I am of the decided opinion that once we embace the Stoic philosophy of life, our troubles seem to dissipate. Of course, it is a very difficult philosophy to be consistent with. So, we are left with the ineluctable reality of straying from its teachings and then--like an impudent, arrogant young pupil who must return to his master for further instruction once his deeper ignorance has come to light--return to it once more to rescue us from the depths of despair.
Well, perhaps this will be the way I am forever, I really don't know. I think that I have been feeling things that I am now unable to really understand with any true depth. And I mean "understand" in the Hegelian sense: I have no "absolute knowledge" of these feelings. Hegel meant by "absolute" (Allgemeinheit) a knowledge that is more than the mere appearance of things, but also of its essence, what makes it work and what is responsible for its being. I know my feelings are that of curiosity and are, in all honesty, quite simple, common feelings. But they have not been present for so long that I have simply forgotten how to react to them and how to deal with them.
I think the woman that I have been speaking to and meeting for the past few months is someone very special, quite sweet and she makes me very happy. We relate excellently, and we speak on a consistent basis. My feelings for her are really quite simple, but sometimes manifest themselves as complex. At first, I thought that I was really beginning to like her, have feelings for her. But now--after last night--I realized that that is not really the case. Rather, what I think is happening is that she has turned something on in me that I simply shut off long ago: I am beginning to become sensitive to women again.
Ok, this may seem terribly pathetic and, to be honest, a bit silly. But you do not understand. I have been alone for quite some time and have grown used to this situation. I do not know if I am ready to depart from it--for these feelings have yet to manifest themselves intellectually as a course of ethical action. No, I think that it is simply the feeling itself which has caused me grief. I was depressed yesterday and was unsure why. I felt abandoned and alone. I did want to speak with her, but I was not going to call fearing the possibility of seeming interested in her. Then, at about 10:30pm she called me and we spoke for several hours. I think that after this I was quite happy indeed: I felt full and renewed, and it was because--during the course of the conversation--I was realizing what these feelings mean and where they are directed.
To evolve feelings for her would not be wise in my practical state of affairs. But this is unlikely to happen. I am more comfortable resting with this insight. It is funny how times of bleak darkness and ignorance can turn at once into moments of pure self-revelation. Socrates' dictum "gnothi seauton!" (know thyself) is one that is an eternal imperative.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:15 AM \\
Monday, August 4
I have since my early adolescence been dedicated to the ideal of the improvement of the self through education. Today, whatever I may or may not be is the result of my education. It is not the fault of the ideas that I have imbibed that I am imperfect or even corrupted, it is more the deformity of my ability to practice what I have studied with any degree of truth.
Virtue is a term that we in our post-Christian world seem to believe is something that denotes chasteness, naive goodness and some kind of ethical purity derived from the simplistic ethics of Jesus which in themselves were derived from Hillel. But this is not the ideal of the Stoics. My ethics are derived from two basic, principle sources. On the one hand, there is the philosophy of the Stoic philosophers. This tells us never to indulge in self-importance, proudness, gluttony, wealth, pleasures of the flesh and so on. On the other hand, there is the Kantian "categorical imperative" that tells us two important things: (i) do only those things which you wish to see as universal laws; and (ii) always treat others as ends and never as means. I have never wanted to be perfect since I know this is something unattainable and it is not the goal of any form of wisdom. Seneca tells us:
Exige itaque a me, non ut optimis par sim, sed ut malis melior.
[And so require not from me that I ought to be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked.]
This weekend I was accused of violating those ethics. I think it was a misunderstanding--on my part I am sure of it, but I am not sure what my good friend still thinks about this--and insofar as this is the case, I know that my ethical self is still intact. I was accused of putting myself and my own interests over that of others, one of the most base accusations that could ever be made against me. It is difficult for me to explain here in this brief space the vileness of that charge. The details are truly insignificant, but be that as it may: my own ethical self-constitution must remain austere. But there is little solace in this, although there should be much. You see, I have nothing in this world except that which is the fruit of my moral education; for this to be questioned is to question the very essence of who I am and how I live my life. It questions my very essence of being.
The objects of any man's affections should be not self-love, amour propre, as Rousseau called it, but the love of justice, freedom and equality. This is the essence of virtue. The love of another is defined by either the carnal desire for that other or the need for the other to compliment and complete the self. In the latter case, my needs makes me weak, drive me from virtue and enslave me. Freedom is elusive to the extent that these needs drive us and define us. Fear of lonliness is another aspect of this. But what else is fear and desire but selfishness? Seneca once more:
quid enim prohibet nos beatam vitam dicere liberum animum et erectum et interritum ac stabilem, extra metum, extra cupiditatem positum, cui unum bonum sit honestas, unum malum turpitudo, cetera vilis turba rerum nec detrahens quicquam beatae vitae nec adiciens, sine auctu ac detrimento summi boni veniens recedens?
[For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast--a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?]
Of course, this is similar and is intellectually derived from Epicurus:
Ouk estin hedeos zein aneu tou phronimos kai kalos kai dikaios aneu tou hedeus.
Whatever the case may be, it is sometimes difficult to retain this philosophy of life in the face of harsh realities. Sometimes I question Seneca's command:
Agedum, virtus antecedat, tutum erit omne vestigium.
[Come then! Let virtue lead the way and every step will be safe.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 8:54 AM \\
Thursday, July 31
I think that I yearn for something that we all do, only some of us feel it more than others. I want wholeness, not fragmentation. I want unity, not disperateness. I want oneness, not diaspora. In society and culture, I want the chaos of modernity to be quelled by the tempered genius of the Greeks and in myself, I want assuage the chaos of my soul through overcoming its lonliness. Shall I quote Holderlin once more:
Indessen dunket mir ofters
Besser zu schlafen, wie so ohne Genossen zu seyn,
So zu harren und was zu thun indess und zu sagen,
[But meanwhile too often I think it is
better to sleep than to be friendless as we are, alone,
Always waiting, and what to do or say in the meantime.]
But, like Kierkegaard says about the existential angst of the soul: you need to feel the sickness first before knowing a cure is in need. I think that this is true, and I will say now that in philosophy we can gain clarity of vision, but not wisdom in practical relations. We can see things about the world that no one else can--those illiterate in philosophy--the right kind of philosophy--will always remain ignorant. They will seek solace in religion, in tortured personal relationships and in the Bacchanalian bliss of capitalist consumerism. But let it not be said that philosophy is the only avenue to truth.
Unity can only come from the reconciliation of our opposites--both within ourselves and externally in the world. I know this now, and I must work through it. Can I feel for another and let myself become whole once more even though it will be in a world that itself is disturbed and imbalanced? Can I let myself feel again after so many years of quiesence and slumber? I do not know, but if so, it may be a tonic of incredible power. I am confused now, but in a good way. I suppose that being so deeply folded into oneself can never be a good thing. I suppose that I have always needed someone else to break down barriers that I have lived within. If the situation arises, I think now I will allow this. When you finally smile after so long, your eyes will thaw in response to the light. Do you recall Holderlin's lines, dear reader:
Sanfter traumet und sclaft in Armen der Erde der Titan,
Selbst der neidische, selbst Cerberus trinket und schlaft.
[Dreams more gentle and sleep in the arms of Earth lull the Titan,
Even that envious one, Cerberus, drinks and lies down.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 3:49 PM \\
Wednesday, July 30
Art has become my supreme protector. Mein Trost, mein Zuversicht! as Bach says about another all-powerful force. But I know now that there are limits to this barrier that has soothed me for so long. Dear reader, do you know Holderlin's wonderful words?
Schones Leben! du lebst, wie die zarten Bluthen im Winter,
In der gealterten Welt bluhst du verschlossen, allein.
Lieben strebst du hinaus, dich zu sonnen am Lichte des Fruhlings,
Zu erwarmen an ihr suchst di die Jugend der Welt.
Deine Sonne, die schonere Zeit, ist untergegangen
Und in frostiger Nacht zanken Orkane sicht nun.
[Beautiful being, you live as do delicate blossoms in winter,
In a world that has old hidden your blossom, alone.
Lovingly outward you press to bask in the light of the springtime,
To be warmed by it still, look for the youth of the world.
But your sun, the lovlier world, has gone down now,
And the quarelling gales rage in an icy bleak night.]
How else to describe the waning of the power of art, of the failure of its cleansing power? I believe that I have become so terribly inept at comprehending anything other than the purity of artistic expression at its highest moments to the extent that all else seems futile now.
My life has become so terribly out of balance, so heavy with sorrw and darkness--it has become that icy bleak night. And this is deservedly so. I think that understanding this reality is central. I have become "too much with the world," as Wordsworth says. I must recede. I must disengage. The dissonance of my life has become so deep, so total, I am unable to perform the most basic fuinctions of life. I have no interest in reading--except for poetry--writing, eating, etc. I only have the thirst for harmony, for rest. I know now I must be the one to impose order on the chaos, but to do so would be quite difficult.
I am beginning to be very bothered by the presence of an interesting woman in my life. I need to shun this now. I think she is wonderful in every way, but I believe this has been disturbing the balance in my life that I have worked so hard to attain and maintain throughout these many years. I cannot allow this to happen, I must be firm. And, to that end, I must return to that all-encompassing power of art and conceptual thought. I must work in the world to shape something better, for the redemption through culture and politics that the human race so dearly needs. I have no other purpose, and even at that, my contribution will be nominal if even recognized at all. So be it, but let it not be said that I live a life without external purpose!
And for you, art. I can say with Holderlin who, while referring to Empedocles still had an insight into the realm of true Truth, penned the following blissful lines:
Doch heilig bist du mir, wie der Erde Macht,
Die dich hinwegnahm, kuhner Getodteter!
Und folgen mocht' ich in die Tiefe,
Hielte die Liebe mich nicht, dem Helden.
and for those illiterate in German:
[Yet you are holy to me as is the power
of earth that too you from us, the boldly killed!
And gladly, did not love restrain me,
Deep as the hero plunged down I'd follow.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 8:56 AM \\
Tuesday, July 29
I do not think that I can deny that, of all things, my emotional life has become so self-contained and self-referential that I am unable to understand and deal with others in a more intimate way. At first, it would seem that this is something good: one is protected from the temptations of the world, of the flesh and can therefore spend more of one's time in contemplation, in thought.
But there is also another reality. That there are emotions that I have, in one sense, distanced myself from but not wholly eliminated. I suppose that I am very wary of falling into a situation of emotional servitude--to a woman of course--and not in the sense that I will be manipulated by her, but in the sense that I will be overwhelmed by the sense of emotional duty and obligation that I will lose who I am, or who I have become.
There is a woman that I have been seeing, but not in an intimate or imminently intimate way. No, I think I have been thinking about her in a more or less abstract sense: in the sense that there is a huge part of my life that is unfulfilled but is unfullfillable; but there is also the sense that I have wrought something that I am now unable to undo: the very essence of self-limitation. I have been thinking about her in the sense that I feel different around her, but refuse to allow those feelings to evolve--so to speak. I think about her and become light of heart; I wish to be better; I am engulfed by streams of light. I cannot say that these are wholly positive things, after all. I am not convinced that I can trust my own feelings in this way, and am still deeply skeptical of how I feel about her. But I can say that it is not something easily ignored. I am so much better off on my own, receding from the world human friction and interaction at that intimate level.
I cannot go into this with any detail here and now. Suffice it to say that I long for some comfort from these feelings. I am so adamant not to fall in love ever again. I will not do it, it is, as Spinoza says, the essence of "human bondage." But, at the same time, I search for a solution to this problem. I think and think about it, it consumes me. And in the process, I suffer untold woe. I ask with Holderlin:
So, ihr Leben! auch mir, so will es scheinen, und niemand
Kann von der Stirne mir nehmen den traurigen Traum?
[So, beloved ones, it seems, with me it is too, and can no one
Lift this dead weight from my brow, break the all-saddening dream?]
--"Menons Klagen um Diotima"
Michael was existentially meandering at 4:04 PM \\
Thursday, July 24
I am now of the decided opinion that art has an essentially Aristotelian function. Ok, who cares: well, for one thing, I do because I live in a world--and I mean this in the most typical sense, i.e., New York--that has become so quotidian, so pathetically mundane and predictable that the only form of escape is through art, through a sense of katharsis.
Aristotle means by this term a "cleansing" of the emotions; a purging of feelings that make us unhealthy in mind and soul--i.e., it sickens our ethos. Whatever the case may be, I have learned that there is no escape from this world, that there is no way to negotiate yourself out of it. No, in its place, art must serve to function as a means of dealing with what has become so disenchanted that existential angst can be the only result.
Dear reader, do you recall what Goethe says about poetry?
Gedichte sind gemalte Fensterscheiben!
[poems are painted windows!]
I suppose the greatest dilemma--at least for me--is considering the apparent--and it is only apparent, not essential--truth that this is an elitist position; that the only way to appreciate and approach great works of art--and this in itself is a problematic concept--is through a finely tuned sense and the perseverence needed to incorporate and comprehend the work of art.
Well, to that I can only say that what else is there to do? After all, are we not all encased in this world of things that are to be controlled, manipualted? Is not the entirety of western science and rationalism now turned toward the control of people as well as things? Has not the hope of a truly ethical community capable of producing the "whole man" (der Mensch ganz), liberated from self-alienation now nothing more than a chimera?
To these concerns I can only say that saving what humans have produced that is beautiful and enlightening is our only choice. For I can say with some degree of confidence, after Heidegger, and please excuse the Heideggerianism, it is within the work of art that the world worlds (da weltet die Welt).
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:09 AM \\
Monday, July 14
I have slipped once again into a terrible depression. I cannot really say why, but I am beginning to see that I am unable to take care of the most basic things in my life; that I have no real emotional support to sure up any of my insecurities, and that I face an increasingly futile and bleak future. This may sound over the top, but it is not, if one actually thinks about it.
For one thing, it would seem that I am constantly running into bureaucratic dilemmas. My car insurance was cancelled, I discovered this weekend, because I did not know about this last payment that had to be made. Now, I need to take care of this problem and fix it--and there is no guarantee that I can. This points to a broader problem: I am not able to deal with these problems emotionally: I have no confidence that they will work out in my favor and that I will constantly be thrown into ever deepening holes of inconvenience for the most simple of things.
In addition, I have found that my depression has little to do with alcohol consumption. I have cut down drinking to the point that it is practically non-existent. And yet, these depressive phases persist. I have also found that there is really no one to talk to about this anymore. I have started to go back to therapy, but this seems increasingly futile. I do not think I want to get better because I do not think that I can. I see myself perpetually in this situation and I am perennially--it would seem--moving as far backward as I am forward. IN other words, I see little room for personal improvement.
I am no longer sure what to do and I am very confused. I am growing apart from people, and from myself. I am coming apart at the emotional seams and I see no tonic to break this descent into the abyss. Perhaps you recall the wonderful title of one of Baudelaire's great poems: De profundis clamavi. And yet, I see, no one hears.
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:27 AM \\
Tuesday, July 8
I have become increasingly disenchanted with my life. I do not think this is a return to the depressive spells of the past few months. No, this is more along the lines of seeing that perhaps fulfillment in life is something totally elusive. My work has always given me satisfaction, and it still does; but I see now that there is an endurting emptiness that I am unable to fill. I feel that the more I interact with others, I see that this is something that grows more intense and yet--paradoxically--more tolerable.
I suppose it is difficult to explain any of this outside of the mere subjective reflection that I am presenting. Then again, I keep Marcus Aurelius closer than ever before. I remember those lines that have kept me steady for so many years:
Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
I think that I am unclear about myself. I think that I am not clear about how I feel about things and my relation to things. I am learning more now, but about things that I am not used to learning about. I am learning about relating to people and therefore about relating to myself. I am seeing now that despair will be my only end unless something in my Weltanschauung changes. I cannot rationally adapt to this world. I cannot eschew the reality of existential angst, of ontological insecurity. But is this to mean that I am not to do whatever I am able to ward off this reality? Is this to mean that I am not to fight back? How can one simply accept such a fate?
As Marcus Aurelius wisely writes:
Will you go on desiring many other things? The you will be neither free, nor sufficient for your own happiness, nor clear of passion.
"Clear of passion"--what does that mean? Yes, I do know! And this is the knowledge I must now seek.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:41 AM \\
Tuesday, July 1
I've been feeling not too well these past few days. It is a bit confusing. My heart has been palipitating and I cannot seem to relax, even though I am indeed relaxing. I am not sure, but there is this sense that I am simply not working enough and not getting enough done. It seems like I am, from the outside, but it is not the case. You see, to really achieve something in life, you need to have control over what you are producing and have the freedom and time to produce and work. I have a bit of the control, but none of the time and freedom.
Working is the only thing I know how to do. I have realized recently how awkward I am with intimacy. I am not a stranger to it, but, with women at least, it has been so long that I have been in any kind of intimate situation that I am no longer able to go back to the state. I suppose this is fine since I have no intention--better, I ought to say there is no possibility of--dating and getting involved like that in the future. But there is also the problem that I know a lot of women now--none of whom are interested me like that, I am not a fool here--but the idea merely raises itself. Everyone else does it; they are all intimate with others. This I find curious: my friends, family, strangers--they are all involved with another person, or a series of them. I find it interesting that I am excluded from this natural state of affairs. I never saw it quite this way before, but now I do.
One of my woman friends called me last night and was complaining about some emotional problems. Nothing big, but just due to stress and the like. I could understand what she was saying and I was listening to myself speak to her, and I noteiced that she lacks what I do too: any form of firm emotional support. I have never fooled myself into thinking that I would never need emotional company and support, I was only resolute that in a society premised and defined by such materialism and superficiality, someone like myself would never be able to compete in the ridiculous marketplace of coupledome. It is the truth, and I am glad to be able to stand outside of it, but I am noticing more and more its consequences. I see now why the statistics show that men who live alone tend to live shorter than those that are married.
So where does this leave me? Nowhere special; but the thought has been creeping up in my mind as of late. It actually is strange to be alone, I never thought of it before since I've always been self-sufficient. Perhaps I am not as independent as I once thought.
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:54 AM \\
Tuesday, June 24
Ok, I'm back. Well, I've been back for about a week or so. I have been thinking about how nice Berlin was, how I'd like to leave New York and go somewhere where people have respect for the public sphere; where the trains run on time and where one has more time for oneself, one's projects and to see other people. Things are too hectic here and, well, I have become bored.
Hegel says that once philosophy paints its gray on gray, then a form of life has grown old. I think that's the case with me. I really hate the cycles that I am in. I need to change, but am not yet ready to do it.
Really, it is of little consequence in the end. The only task of the individual is to see himself as a part of the whole, to contribute to the public good as much as possible. This is not a sense of Christian goodness, it is rather pure Aristotelian philosophy: the good citizen is one who acts with the public interest in political and instellectual affairs. There is a word in Greek, phronesis, that captures this mode of acting and being. Whatever the case may be, it is getting more and more difficult in this culture which is defined by self-interest and selfishness. I suppose that this was meant to be; the only true outcome of a commercialized market-based society. Really crude, and I must say, stifling toward the development of each, and therefore of all.
But enough of this intellectual rant! I must say that I have been quite content, quite, well, happy--and I cannot say why. Not that I have really been inquiring as to why, but school is over, and things are going well with my publications and writing. So, now I'll need to lose a limb to make up for this goodness--it does not last for long.
As for women, I have been ambivalent--I think. I have actually finally decided that I am completely ambivalent on this issue and that I am unable to be honest with myself anymore. The realization of this has also led to a release of psychological energy and reduction of tension. Good, but now I am in a new plane of thought and feeling. I think that I am more and more secure in the fact that I am repulsive to women and this has allowed me to interact with them freely, without any sense of awkwardness. You see, I am and have always been very unattractive. That may be putting it too politely: I am actually very ugly, repulsive in fact. From my early adolescence this bothered me a lot since I was always conscious of it. Now, I see that instead of this being a negative aspect--it would be if one were trying to find a mate--I have actually turned it into something positive. I never need to worry about dealing with women problems--or, perhaps I should say, relationship problems, to be fair--since this is not on the horizon of possibility. This has made me quite content, and now I see that I am more free mentally and emotionally than before.
Very well, so there we have it: another entry after my globe-trotting journey. I suppose that, deep inside, these reflections keep me company. The barren world of cyberspace is cold and vast, but I have my own corner of warmth.
Michael was existentially meandering at 7:59 AM \\
Friday, May 23
This is my last day for a while at this wretched daytime job of mine and I have to admit I am not in the least bit sad about it. I'm going to Berlin on Tuesday for the next three weeks. I am a Humboldt Fellow at Humboldt University and will spend my days hanging out in seminars and my evenings at salons and parties. It will be such a change from the norm--well, not really.
Anyway, I have not written in this blog for the best of reasons: I have had little to say. Not that I have not been thinking and feeling, but I have been so indifferent yet comfortable that it is really amazing. I don't know, I sometimes long for those days of depressive desparation, the way it brings you up close to your humanity, your sense of self, your very essence. Then again, those episodes plunge me into extreme despair, perhaps the grass is simply always greener somewhere else.
No great insights gained from my morning readings, no pithy thoughts from my mundane daily observations. Simply me, and existence. Such a barren world it is.
Auf wiedersehen...
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:21 AM \\
Friday, May 9
I have often been fond of saying, in the manner of Theocritus, that there is no "cure for love." It may be true, after all, that there is no absolute cure. No remedy for the pain and suffering felt from the passion for an other. No, what I have found is that it is not a cure in the sense that Theocritus, in his orginial, Greek terminology, implies, an "elixer" a "pharmakon." Rather it is more in the realm of technique.
As individuals, we all develop and evolve. We transform, transmogrify. We change as the result of a sometimes delicate, sometimes violent dialectic between intuition and expeience on the one hand and fact and circumstance on the other. I have found that there is a remedy for love, and it is all in the timing. Yes, the timing. You see, I have realized that love, in its most impulsive and its most delicate forms, is nothing more than the slow building up of perceptions, thoughts, and the feelings that we attach to them. I see now that it is nothing more than the accumulation of perceived gestures, facial expressions, and the harmonic subtelties of the voice. When you speak with a woman that is somehow and in some way emotionally engaged with you--this does not mean that she "likes" or loves you necessarily, simply that she is interested in you in some level beyond the instrumental--you cannot help but see these things, to realize them and begin to put them together in your mind. You can hardly resist constructing an emotional nexus wherein you relate at a deeper level. You begin to see her--even though you may not have before--as profoundly attractive and your emotional ignorance of her begins to work itself up into passion.
Now, here I have described the mechanism of love. I sometimes find it silly that certain things I read many years ago and which had little significance for me then, now return to reveal great expanses of wisdom. Such is the unknown poem by Ovid, written after his more (in)famous Artis Amatoriae (the Art of Love). The poem is significantly shorter, but more profound, indeed, and is called Remedia Amoris (the Remedies of Love). I will quote only a few lines here for your reading pleasure:
Principiis obsta; sero medecina paratur,
Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
Sed propera, nec te venturas differ in horas;
Qui no est hodie, cris minus aptus erit;
Verba dat omnis amor, reperitque alimenta morando;
Optima vindictae proxima quaeque dies.
Flumina pauca vides de magnis fontibus orta:
Plurima collectis multiplicantur aquis.
[Resist beginnings. Too late is the medicine prepared
when the disease has gained strength by long delay.
Yes, and be quick about it, do not wait on the coming hours.
He who is not ready today will be less so tomorrow.
All love decieves and feeds off this delaying.
Next day seems ever the best for your deliverance.
Few rivers do you see that are born of mighty springs.
Most are increased by gathering waters.]
And then:
Interea tacitae serpunt in viscera flammae,
Et mala radices altius arbor agit.
[Meanwhile, secret flames creep into our innermost being,
and the evil tree drives its roots deeper down.]
The art of being timely is itself a medicine (Temporis ars medecina fere est); you must catch yourself and beware. I have found this to be the case. I have been dealing with a woman for some weeks now, and I have been so very able to stave off these feelings. I am so aware, I am so timely in the art of practicing Ovid's art. You see, the odd thing is, I was simply reading this this morning willy-nilly. Reading Latin verse is something I do each morning, and Greek prose in the evening. To read these lines was such a moral tonic!
Yes, I know, where then can love come from? That is another issue entirely. For now, I am simply content to combat its fierce assaults. I must kep busy, must continue to work. As Ovid says:
Adfluit incautis insidiosus Amor.
[Insidious love glides into defenseless hearts.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:20 AM \\
Sunday, May 4
When the sun is out, one thinks and feels differently. This may seem obviouis, and so be it, but for me things have been in such equilibrium I can scarcely believe it. Why, I ask myself, have things been so, "ok"? Well, for one thing, I have stopped worrying about where my life is headed. I think that from now on the best approach is to let things simply happen and keep close to one's conscience.
No doubt, dear reader, you recall that great line from the immortal Florentine:
Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti.
Well, I have never cared what others think about me and my ideas, I will--as Marx did--let science and conscience be my guide. As for other things, well, school will be over soon, my book will be out in the summer, and I am going away to Berlin (paradise compared to this place) for a few weeks to get away. Let's see what happens.
Also, my female friend from work returns tomorrow. I don't know, I guess when she's not around, I realize how much I miss her. She doesn't care about that though. I think I come off as nasty when she's around, but I don't mean it against her, specifically. I need to try to change that--she's very special to me.
I'm listening to Berlioz now, and I have to say that Berlioz and a beautiful spring evening are absolutely inseparable.
Michael was existentially meandering at 7:02 PM \\
Thursday, May 1
Things have been cool, things have been nice. I cannot explain why or how. Actually, I've been busy with my job, and this has meant less time to sit around pondering my pathetic life. Also, things are ending with school and my students are really great. I've been teaching Hegel--one of the real greats in human thought and history--and they're getting him. They're getting him in the sense that they see the world around them is inverted and fucked up. I'm glad.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:27 PM \\
Friday, April 25
I think that, perhaps, I spoke a bit too soon yesterday. I had somewhat of a hard time with one of my female friends today, and I must admit that women cause me more grief than anything else. I do not think that this at all counters the things that I said in this blog yesterday, but I need to see that things are not all that wonderful.
Now, the question is, how much of these problems are generated by me. One could apprach this statistically. I really only have problems with her, and no one else. This may lead one to believe that it is all her fault, but I know this is not the case. Rather, one needs to approach this dialectically. I have noticed--upon examining my feelings about her and especially when we are in some kind of conflict--that she simply thinks in a way completely different from me. Personally, I do not feel that it is a productive method of thinking about the world, but I am willing to bracket that for the time being. No, I think that she simply changes the parameters of discussion to such an extent that my own methods of reason and logic do not seem to make sense to her.
Now, this could be coupled with my approach, which is relatively rational and quite indifferent to personal affairs and biases. She is very wrapped up in the personal and in her identity which makes it difficult to attain clear thinking. This notwithstanding, it causes me great emotional stress. I really like her, but she is often cold and removed, even though I do not think that she really feels that way--but how can one be sure? So, I am forced to be equally so; this causes arguments and misunderstandings. I really do not like this, and--even though I really have deep feelings for her--there is no way to let her know because she is so resistent and cannot see me for who I really am. She has constructed an image of me in her head, and she does not depart from it.
Well, I can say that it has all become almost like theater. I mean, it happens, and then it happens again. I must say it does a job on my emoitonal stability, and sometimes my bouts of depression are set off by our arguments, or sometimes when I think about her. Oh well, I suppose that women have this effect on men. I also suppose that I am deeply interlocked with her in a very strange way. I do not think I can adequately express it here--then again, no one cares but me after all.
Michael was existentially meandering at 4:15 PM \\
Thursday, April 24
There is one thing that anyone must admit, that to attain any degree of happiness in this world which is truly worth something, it must be something useful to others. I mean useful here in only one sense: that it expand the horizons of experience and knowledge of yourself as well as others. Teaching does this for me; painting for another; writing for another.
I have found that it is this that makes me happy--whether I teach others or myself. These past two days have been nice. Even though I was very sick on Wednesday and was home with the flu, I was able to read, think and then meet some students and discuss ideas and see new avenues of thought. I have also seen that the journal I edit, Logos, is something of increasing value to others, and this is something that makes me very happy as of late.
I cannot say that this is something I tend to feel all of the time. After all, when I am sick, I tend not to see the values of these things. I do not feel the way I do now. This intrigues me to no end: how one can be so different in feeling and outlook. I feel grounded now; even though things are not ideal, I know I can persevere and make something of myself. I know I can do good things for other people, and I see that there are (some) people that value me. I wonder why this is sometimes, but at other times, I see no reason to investigate this problematic--right now seems one of those times.
So, what about this turn of events? I see that I have many new, very good book projects ahead of me, and I also see that in the long run, I will in every way work my hardest to increase this discourse and the intercourse that is public reason. I also suppose that I have overcome these silly feelings that I have had for some time about several women I have been thinking about and about whom I had complex feelings. I think that women are really something else. I am so used to seeing them as an "other"; as something that is defined against my interests, but I see that this is not the case. I see that they really can make me happy. I don't know, perhaps this is simply delusional, but I now have a couple of good female friends, and I do not see them as sexual objects, nor as objects of a relationship. I see them simply as good human beings, and this has made me think as of late--because of their extreme differences--about the wonderful things that they think and feel. How different they are from men and how truly smart and sensitive they can be. It is really one of the great tragedies of world history that the other half of humanity has been oppressed and silenced for so long.
These women I know are really quite special, and I now consider myself so lucky to know them. I really think that they are made of better stuff than me: their personal perseverence in face of many of my tiresome, quite abhorrent personal qualities, is something to be commended in itself. But there is something more: I feel like I am in Marvell's garden, discovering the truth of femininity for the first time. They are the most beautiful and powerful of creatures, and it has been so long since I was intimate with a woman that the memories--which are so immediate and delicate--have come rushing back to me like a flood. I recall every sense of being there, scent, touch, everything. Do you remember those great lines from Marvell, dear reader?
What wond'rous Life in this I lead!
Ripe Apples drop about my head;
The Luscious Clusters of the Vine
Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine;
The Nectaren, and curious Peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling Melons, as I pass,
Insanr'd with Flow'rs, I fall on Grass.
You know the rest, but these lines pulsed through my veins today upon this complex emotional realization--their metaphorical connotations hardly lost on my senses. They are so beautiful and wonderous, these women, they truly have become the focus of my attention.
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:08 PM \\
Monday, April 21
Dear reader, do you know what Lemnius said about music?
Musica est mentis medicina maestae.
[Music is the great cure for melancholy.]
I have to admit that for so long I have agreed with this phrase. As a very young child, I was always transfixed by music, of all kinds. I would sit at home for hours after coming home from school and sit in front of the stereo my parents owned and listen in pure rapture.
Now, it has become my only avenue for emotional stability. I believe that all of us require music to one extent or another; the difference with me is simply that it has been for so long an absolute requirement of my day. This morning, I listened to the opening of Bach's "Erfeute Zeit im neuen Bunde," a wonderful, powerful piece. Then, I moved on to the opening chorus of his "Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme" with its brilliant setting of Luther's chorale and its slow, but dleiberate, rising figure in the soprano line while the lower registers perform serpentine variations on that simple theme. The rise of the chorale is symbolic: the soul's rise to heaven is inscribed metaphorically, in sound, and conjoins with the listener in real time. Music has this ability; unlike painting and sculpture it is dynamic. But, unlike poetry and prose, it is not as intellectual. It requires us to act on a different emotional-cognitive level. It has no concreteness, and, in this way, it is superior to the more sensitive sentiments of our being. Indeed, every art form has its different function with respect to human sensibilities--I agree, after all, with Lessing's argument in hisLaocoon--but music elevates the soul and gives it more dignity than any other I can imagine experiencing.
I suppose that, for me, this has become my way of holding on to sanity. I think that it is my connection to what is most perfect, to the crystalline ideal of human emotional perfection. I have become so utterly lost in Bach's genius, his artistry, his religious ecstasy, that I can scarecely imagine not spending eternity in his exclusive company.
The mundane operations of this world, so disenchanted, so alienated, no longer holds any interest for me. I have sunk so low in the world. I am no longer equipped to be here. I yearn to experience what I hear. I recall Whitman's verse composed after attending the opera in New York more than a century ago:
I orbit the sun wider than Neptune
I dip into the ocean's deep waters
Whatever the interpretation, I think that I can never leave it. I know that today I am depressed, but I have grown sick of this weekend of depression. I need ot fight it now and get back to some semblance of normalcy. It is always like this, and forever shall be. But at least my struggles do not go unaided--at least there is a soundtrack.
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:08 AM \\
Sunday, April 20
I have become so depressed again. I have increasingly seen that there are few avenues out from this pathetic morass, and I have also begun to see that my most typical methods of control and emotional management no longer seem to work. It seems to me that to be in one's late 20s is difficult for anyone, but, for me, there seems to be a sense of ontological insecurity that has become so intense I am unable to truly work through simple issues with any degree of simplicity. Instead, I have needed to devote so much energy toward managing some sense of stability that it stands in the way of my work and other duties. I also hurt others who have fooled themselves into thinking that by paying attention to my state that they are actually thinking about me and not there own sense of self and the guilt that they may feel resulting from stoic resignation. Indeed, this says something for their superior moral character, but this is superior only when compared with the "herd" and is clearly not something genuine and authentic.
I cannot say that there are any truly overt reasons for these bouts with depression. I have had them on and off since I was about 14. But there is a sense that contemplating one's pathetic place in this world has much to do with such a situation. I exist in a state of pure dissonance. I have become rootless. Those things that once gave me enthusiasm, now are nothing but pure grey, their contents emptied and the hollowed receptacles that remain are defunct.
Solutions are not easy to come by. I must say that I have changed my mind on many things. My resolve for a solution is more immediate now then ever. Why ought one to endure such suffering? Even more, why ought one to endure it when one is not truly valued? Kant tells us that suicide goes against the categorical imperative. He gives us an example of a man contemplating suicice in his "Foundations for the Metaphysics of Morals." He says that there is no ethical justification for killing onself since you ought only to perform an act that you think should become a universal law of nature and society.
Well, I can respond to Kant in only one way: I do wish that those who feel the way I do would find their satisfaction through death. I have become so infatuated with this idea: the idea of my death. I think about it almost every moment. I am so relieved to be able to say this into the blank, nameless nebulousness which is the internet!
So, I was reading Pliny the other morning, and came accross the following, wonderful passage which shows us how the silly, ignorant, naive moralism concerning the prohibition on suicide is nothing but a creation of the moral ignorance of Judeo-Christian religions (even though in neither the Old nor New Testaments is there a single prohibition against it). I quote Pliny at length and give a suitable rendering into English from his Historia Naturalis, book 28, ch. 1:
Vitam quidem non adeo expetendam censemus, ut quoque modo trahenda sit. Quisquis es talis, aeque moriere, etiam cum obscoenus vixeris, aut nefandus. Quapropter hoc primum quisque in remediis animi sui habeat: ex omnibus bonis, quae homini tribuit natura, nullum melius esse tempestiva morte: idque in ea optimum, quod illam sibi quisque praestare poterit.
Which can be rendered as follows:
We are of the opinion that one should not love life so much so as to prolong it at any cost. Whoever you may be, you who desire this will still, in the end, die even though you may have lived a good or vicious and criminal life. Therefore, may everyone above all keep as a remedy for his soul that fact that--of all the blessings conferred by nature on man--none is better than an opportune death; and the best thing is that everyone can procure for himself such a death.
He then goes on to say:
Namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscire, si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis.
Which ought to be rendered thusly:
Yet with so much suffering in life, such a death is the best gift he (God) has granted to man.
Now, all of this said, I can say that I feel somewhat better. I think that Pliny's wisdom has been sorrowfully lost; thankfully, however, not on me.
Michael was existentially meandering at 1:47 PM \\
Thursday, April 17
I have attained an odd sense of equilibrium, clarity and balance. For some time now, I have been off-center, emotionally blurred. I have been a slave to the most confused of emotions, obfuscating my thoughts, fragmenting my very sense of being. I have now seen what Spinoza must really have meant by the term "Of Human Bondage." In his Ethics, Spinoza tells us that the extent to which we are driven by our emotions at the expense of reason is the extent to which we are in a state of "human bondage." Many know of the term from W. Somerset Maugham's novel, but the real insight here is philosophical, not aesthetic. It means that our freedom is at stake. The only way to be free is to have the ability to think about what one is feeling and not allow emotion to guide us, but only that of reason.
Ok, say what you will. This means we are to be robots; this means that cold, calculating reason (as Marx calls it in the Manifesto) is to take the place of warmth and feeling, and that we are, somehow, to surrender our humanity to the passionless maxims of reason. I do not think that this is the case. I think that there is a sense that the less self-consciousness we possess, the more we will be unable to see that the roots of our (destructive) emotions are not at all justified. The less self-consciousness we possess, the less likely we will be able to comprehend and solve the emotional storms that hover over us. This is not a priviledging of intellect over emotion. No, it is merely a matter of understanding.
Now, what is self-consciousness? This is complex, but mean it in Hegelian terms. Hegel says that we attain self-consciousness only by interacting with an object of knowledge. He says that we perceive it (stage one); then we see ourselves as different from it and "desire" it in the sense that we want to know what it is (stage two, or consciousness); then, by interacting with that object of knowledge and then understanding it, we achieve self-consciousness.
Now, this is what I mean when I say I have achieved some sense of equilibrium. I have really grown these past two days, seeing that some emotions I believed meant one thing, in fact do not and they are the product of something else. These issues arise when I think about women; they arise when I meet a woman that is nice, attractive and, for some reason, has the inclincation to talk with me and continue to contact me for further meetings and discussions. Although this phenomenon is, at present, beyond explaining with any degree of intellectual rigor, let alone any degree of common sense, I cannot say that the emotional consequences of it sometimes are not quite difficult to deal with. I still have the emotions about a very nice, quite wonderful woman I've just met who seems interested in interacting with me (?), but I see what they are, truly. I see now that they are "instinctual" and internally created by myself, and are not a real reaction to her as a person. This realization was something else, I must say, and now, I can enjoy the next couple of days of emotional equilibrium before I slide back into despair.
Michael was existentially meandering at 12:53 PM \\
Thursday, April 10
I have been thinking about lunch dates. They are terribly impractical, and I have to say that I feel awkward participating in them. I should clarify. I was out today with someone talking and, awkwardly, eating and it is really something quite embarassing. You need to strategize: while she is talking, you should be taking as many bites as possible--with the obvious caveat that too many in a short period of time would be rude and positively disgusting--in order to maximze as much as possible the time when you will be able to talk without spluttering morsels of food all over the place and looking like some kind of beast. Then again, while you speak, the other needs to do exactly the same, realizing that, if this were not to happen, one could be at lunch for eternity, at least in theory.
Abolish the lunch date, and I think that--for the most part--my pathetic existence may be able to improve even the slightest iota over its present, repulsive state.
Michael was existentially meandering at 3:45 PM \\
Tuesday, April 8
There is no pharmakon erota.
Make me bitter
Spun from the secret thread
on which the dew you were thinking slid down to the jugs
guarded by words that no one's heart found their way.
I looked for your eye when you opened it
count the bitter almonds
count me in:
From the depths of drowning
I glimpse the elixer
its chalice encrusted in billowing clouds
Poured forth from its innards,
it spills around me
like the presense of your warmth
you make me bitter
there is no pharmakon erota.
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:37 AM \\
Thursday, April 3
By some odd compulsion, I have decided to record a brief entry in this quasi-daily record of thoughts and reflections. But first, a note about the blog's confusing title. The more literate among you will no doubt have noticed that Cheerful Science is a play, or retranslation, of Nietzche's The Gay Science (Die Froeliche Wissenschaft) a book that espouses a way of looking at the world that is totally your own, and completely in the employ of personal pleasure and joy. Now, this means that we all seek to be happy and to give free play to our senses, our irrational desires. We seek to break free from the constrictions of everyday life, of work, extended obligations, dogmatic moral inclinations, customs, and, most importantly, reason. Reason, that thing which essentially ensnares us within a world alienated from bliss, controls us through binding our desires and passions, and controls through its cold logic. This is the great tension, for those of you who sufficiently think and feel at the same time.
This is something on my mind at all times. I can never resolve this tension, and it will only be through bursting these ties asunder that any real sense of freedom will be obtained. I await that time, when I can enter my Byzantium. There is a wonderful Bach Canata that ends with a poignant, yet beautiful line: "Hier ist angst, dort Herrlichkeit!"
Michael was existentially meandering at 4:58 PM \\
Wednesday, April 2
Goethe says somewhere that we should talk less and draw more. I am inclined to agree, although since my skills at drawing are lacking any degree of skill, perhaps writing will suffice. I've decided to make this Blog an investigation of my daily thoughts and existential realities. An ostensibly boring enterprise, you might say? Perhaps, but I think there is some common, universal sense that we all have about our lives, our experiences in our modern, urban, deracinated existence; and I do not want to emphasize the negative, but, rather, explore it.
Anyway, such is the purpose of my daily ramblings, and in my own prosaic way, i will evoke a poetic turn on Milton: what in me is dark, illumine / what is low, raise and support: That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert eternal providence, and justify the ways of men, to men.
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:06 AM \\
Monday, March 31
Test.
Michael was existentially meandering at 9:39 PM \\
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