self portrait
The Renegade - by E.M. Cioran
He remembers being born somewhere, having believed in native errors, having proposed principles and preached inflammatory stupidities. He blushes for it... and strives to abjure his past, his real or imaginary fatherlands, the truths generated in his very marrow. He will find peace only after having annihilated in himself the last reflex of the citizen, the last inherited enthusiasm. How could the heart's habits still chain him, when he seeks liberation from genealogies and when even the ideal of the ancient sage, scorner of all cities, seems to him a compromise? The man who can no longer take sides because all men are necessarily right and wrong, because everything is at once justified and irrational - that man must renounce his own name, tread his identity underfoot, and begin a new life in impassibility or despair. Or otherwise, invent another genre of solitude, expatriate himself in the void, and pursue - by means of one exile or another - the stages of uprootedness. Released from all prejudices, he becomes the unusable man par excellence, to whom no one turns and whom no one fears because he admits and repudiates everything with the same detachment...
(he rivals the Idea itself; he has abstracted himself from his ancestors, from his friends, from every soul and himself; in his veins, once turbulent, rests a light from another world. Liberated from what he has lived, unconcerned by what he will live, he demolishes the signposts on all his roads, and wrests himself from the dials of all time...)
He remembers being born somewhere, having believed in native errors, having proposed principles and preached inflammatory stupidities. He blushes for it... and strives to abjure his past, his real or imaginary fatherlands, the truths generated in his very marrow. He will find peace only after having annihilated in himself the last reflex of the citizen, the last inherited enthusiasm. How could the heart's habits still chain him, when he seeks liberation from genealogies and when even the ideal of the ancient sage, scorner of all cities, seems to him a compromise? The man who can no longer take sides because all men are necessarily right and wrong, because everything is at once justified and irrational - that man must renounce his own name, tread his identity underfoot, and begin a new life in impassibility or despair. Or otherwise, invent another genre of solitude, expatriate himself in the void, and pursue - by means of one exile or another - the stages of uprootedness. Released from all prejudices, he becomes the unusable man par excellence, to whom no one turns and whom no one fears because he admits and repudiates everything with the same detachment...
(he rivals the Idea itself; he has abstracted himself from his ancestors, from his friends, from every soul and himself; in his veins, once turbulent, rests a light from another world. Liberated from what he has lived, unconcerned by what he will live, he demolishes the signposts on all his roads, and wrests himself from the dials of all time...)
posted by Ernest Scribbler at 7/07/2005 01:37:00 AM
10 Comments:
one of my rabbis was talking about how in order to get to the inner spirituality, you have to break through the peel of tumaa - destruction before birth. i was thinking of you ...
Pixee - the point then would be to attempt a language that distorts the knowable and the known, a writing that forces one to abandon the established contours of language. To plunge into a space in which language breaks down,stutters, stammers... a space of bewilderment: It is in the wilderness that prophesy is born. (The ancient Biblical scribes must have had an inkling of this- the Hebrew word for ‘desert’ is also the word for ‘one who speaks’...) A language against language. Or as Deleuze would say, to become a foreign-speaker in one's own language. To lose oneself. To dare the incoherent, to sink, to drown. (Bergson speaks of two kinds of knowledge. He writes that only the drowning man “knows” water.) Few poets have dared to drown. Not to be free of the world and its entanglements, but to actively engage with it and distort it beyond recognition. Not to be understood but to further misunderstanding. (To free ourselves of the tyranny of intelligibility.) Not to fix the brokenness but to be broken with intensity and force. So my writing isn't an expression of the all-too-human (i don't even know what a term like 'inherently human' would mean) desire to confess, become transparent and be understood by others. It is rather the attempt to forge a path through the terror of my own solitude. Though it is nice to see how other people are affected by my endeavors. so... flattered that you are listening. whoever you are.
Eliyahu- why sad?
Liege- sur merah veaseh tov... the 'sur' is an active and violent disengagement. but i would hesitate from making the destruction parasitic on the positive eventuality of the creation. What I was thinking was more that the destruction is itself a creative act...
pixee, but i never claimed that my shmalz was anything special. the first to admit that my writing is my cowardice, words my fear of silences, the will to profundity an addiction which i despise and depend on, the door through which i flee my creative impotence. And if i stand in the 'shade of tall trees' it is only because they provide me respite from the burning sun of clarity, they afford me an oasis of obscurity. The fact that i responded to you with such force should not be taken as patronizing but as a mark of respect. and still, your words do not stand nakedly
'searching for myself'? what a funny idea...
man,you guys can't go deleting comments before i get here! i'm liking the way this is going, though. luv u all
they just haven't actually started yet. let's go again.
eliyahu... yeah, you're right. pretty sad.
ana- long time...
pixie - what gives you the idea that i'm searching for some one? please elaborate if you want me to respond
welcome back, ana. btw, is that your real name or an ... organization?
dream 4
family gathering at house in israel. but the house looks like the london house - 6 claremont park. the garden has a large chicekn wire fence that has two wire doors (like tennis courts) that lead to the valley/forest out back. The garden looks decrepit like it hasn't been tended in years, the ground is covered in dog shit everywhere, there's a wooden ladder in the middle of the garden resting on something. Papa is leading family and guests into the washroom next to the patio by the house which is actually a dining area. I keep going to the backyard because I have seen a pack of wolves wandering around the forest when i was back there with the dogs and i'm afraid they'll come into the yard. When I get to the yard, there are already a few wolves prowling around inside, I run up the ladder and wait for them to leave so i can go and close the two gate doors. Every time i get off the ladder though one of them turns around and i clammer back up. (of course the dogs are useless, in fact i'm hoping they don't notice the wolves or go near them). I'm quite terrified and don't know what to do. Eventually papa sees me and comes down to find out what's going on, I start telling him in an exasperated voice that the gates were open and now there are wolves in the garden and they're a threat to the family. He seems preoccupied with the guests so i start raising my voice at him that the wolves are prowling and they're dangerous. Most of them are still in the forest. For some reason a group of guests lead by my mother has just arrived and she is bringing them into the garden. The wolves turn around (I'm panicking at this point, yelling at my dad - how could you let these people down here i told you there are wolves) and before i can react one of the wolves charges into the crowd. They start to scream and run. I see the wolf attacking someone. As people move out of the way I'm horrified to see his victim is smaller than he is. I wake up yelling (to/at my dad) "he's got a child! he's got a child!"
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