Titanic (1992) │ Spinozist temporality │ internet graveyard │ Buddhist monk self-exposure
Titanic (1992) │ Spinozist temporality │ internet graveyard │ Buddhist monk self-exposure
20/08/2024 - 24/08/2024
Titantic (1992)
Beauty as formed at the tectonic edge of the working class and the non-working class. If class conflict crystallises into beauty, not into freedom, then there is no hope.
(The exception to the rule makes the rule seem exceptional.)
‘We can’t leave him…’
As if Jesus were a wound, a gash on capitalism’s thigh, into which you must crawl if you wish to get out/die. A gash that must pay rent for its thighspace.
(Jack must die several times to really die, just as you must shake the tomato ketchup bottle several times before the last bit comes out).
The horizon is a line before being a future.
Nietzscheanism: learning to see the horizon as a vertical line.
I feel nothing until I am interrupted, interrupted in my ongoing activity of feeling nothing. And then, having been interrupted, looking back over my ‘activity,’ it seems as if I had been in a state of continuous spiritual rapture, which I have no way of returning to (well, this part is true).
I could solve this by simply writing:
Captain’s log, 5.12pm. Not in a state of spiritual rapture. Captain’s log, 5.15pm. Again, not in a state of spiritual rapture. Captain’s log, 5.32pm. No sign of spiritual rapture, etc.
But even this wouldn’t help: my logbook would look, once I had finished it, like a record of some sophisticated monastic exercise.
But this is natural: there is nothing you can do to the past to make it know the present, to teach it ‘what the present is really like.’ It will always have the light of impossibility about it. But that’s the point: it’s this light which makes the present (endless interruption of what would otherwise be continuous spiritual rapture) endurable.
The future is a wound in the past, its moment of self-doubt.
That the word time exists is enough to make everything else irrelevant, even God.
The present tense is the only thing small enough for death to fit inside.
Lie by default to protect yourself from the true horror: lying for some specific reason –
The more I get to know people, the less I envy them, not because I like them more (though of course I do) but because they lack the ontological innocence which I envy most, which exists in proportion to someone having nothing to do with me.
The death drive presupposes envy of every particle of matter which falls within the category not me.
A graveyard with headstones of the following type:
He used the internet
She used the internet
He used the internet
She used the internet
They used the internet
No great poem, at least none of world-historical significance, has been written within twenty-four hours of masturbation, the old man said. But on the other hand, nearly all great poems, especially those with a grand, historical vision, were first conceived within forty-eight hours of masturbation. No more than forty-eight hours, he said, and no less than twenty-four. Why are you telling me this, old man, I said. What makes you think I have the strength for it, what makes you think I can survive this information? Look, he said, pointing behind me, what a beautiful creature! I looked around and saw nothing. When I turned back to him, he had exposed himself. One more wound, he said, in the earth, and now it’s in both your eyes, and between your eyes. Why have you exposed yourself to me, old man? Why did you tell me to ‘look over there,’ at the ‘beautiful creature,’ when you knew there was nothing? The buddha closed his eyes and said, if you don’t like it, why don’t you go to another dojo.
I love you despite myself; I love you because of myself; I love you despite yourself; I love you because of yourself. The four ‘love languages’ –
Venn diagram; left circle because, right circle despite. Personally, I advise crawling tirelessly around the perimeter of the inner oval, as if this labia minora-style ellipse were the only thing left of God.1
A version of the cross: upright BECAUSE and, transfixing BECAUSE through the E, DESPITE.
Editing process: remove italics, add italics, remove italics, add italics.
But always eventually reverting to the original (as if the other words on the page have to get used to the arrangement, have to be given time to reflect on their demotion).
I am planning to run a philosophy seminar this winter, starting in November.
It will cost £30, last 8 hours (over 4 sessions), and cover a semi-democratically selected text from Spinoza / Žižek / Levinas / Benjamin / Kierkegaard / Nietzsche, read (generally) line-by-line (I’m leaning towards Spinoza at the moment because it seems most amenable to a line-by-line read, because each line so dense/crucial).
If you’re interested (in this or something similar), please send me an email, at philip.traylen@gmail.com (so far, there’s about seven/eight people interested, I’d imagine twelve-fifteen is kind of the sweet spot).
More detail at the end of this post:
novellas by men aged 34-35 │ Beckett's failure │ against 'world-building' │ Aberystwyth │ the tedium of maternity
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3 AUG
‘Like a caustic acrostic / spelling out your name.’
Outrageously brilliant.
That’s a good pick that was already picked