One Hundred and Ninety Five

I think of myself as a ghost, someone who no longer lives in this world of illusion and is invisible to those who still do.  I’m surprised when someone says or does something that shows s/he’s aware of me.  I’m barely aware of myself.

I think of myself as naked because I don’t wear any of the costumes by which most people identify each other.  My nakedness embarrasses them, so I’ve learned not to reveal myself, saying as little as possible and never what I think.

One Hundred and Ninety Four

Justin was always on the edge, but the divorce seems to be pushing him over it.  He called me three times today.  Actually nine, but I answered only three.  The rest I let go to voicemail.   

What can I do?  What could I do even if I were there, or he were here?

I'd tell him to see a therapist, but I'm afraid it would send him into a panic.  He tries so hard to be normal.

One Hundred and Ninety Three

I read an article about civility today.  I assume it was written, and published, because so many pundits claim civility has disappeared in the age of Trump.  But as usual plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. 

The difference between Trump and his predecessors is superficial, a change of style rather than substance.  He’s more vulgar, but no more corrupt than they were.  He merely does and says publicly what they did and said privately.  That seems to be what his fans like most about him, and what his critics dislike most.

Trump's fans know he's a con man.  They assume all politicians are con men, that what our superiors call democracy is a con.  They say they like Trump because he “tells it like it is”, by which they apparently mean he doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a con man. 

The article was mostly a summary of Norbert Elias’ The Civilising Process which, if I remember correctly, is mostly about the civilising of France, and how things that were done publicly in medieval France later became private.  It even quotes Elias’ famous description of ancien régime aristocrats who, while conversing in the halls of Versailles would step aside, undo their breeches and urinate or even defecate publicly.  Such behavior was of course possible only for people with servants who clean up their messes, like dogs with owners who follow them about with 'pooper scoopers'.  Not even the most vulgar of Trump’s fans would relieve themselves in public, because they’re the people who have to clean up the messes made by their supposed superiors.

Ancien régime aristocrats were regarded by their underlings, and regarded themselves, as civilised because they lived in the city and had the wealth and education to participate in its culture, unlike the peasants who lived and worked on their country estates.  But they didn't become what Elias regarded as civilised until they began doing privately what they used to do publicly.  

Elias claimed French aristocrats became more circumspect because of the growing power of the king.  After the Fronde, the formerly independent aristocrats accepted that the king was now their master, and became his fawning courtiers.  I suspect the change in their behavior was due as much, if not more, to their growing fear of the canaille.  The philosophes taught the aristocrats that the ancien régime was doomed.  They became fawning courtiers because they hoped the king was powerful enough to protect them from the canaille.

Ancien régime aristocrats didn't treat their underlings with contempt because they were powerful.  They did it because they had become powerless.  Confident people don’t remind their underlings, or themselves, that they’re powerful by treating others with contempt.  On the contrary, they demonstrate their power by being kind to those they regard as their inferiors precisely because they are inferior, and can’t be judged by the same standard as equals.

Most Americans are powerless, and Trump’s fans are the most powerless of all, the canaille whom even the pettiest bourgeois feels entitled to look down on with contempt.  There used to be no one lower than these people, but now they feel superior to everyone else because their supposed champion defeated the American aristocracy to become president.

I don't know what they’ll do when their Lord of Misrule’s presidency is over, but I'm sure they won't rebel.  Trump's success hasn't taught them that change is possible.  On the contrary, it's taught them what Obama's success taught the petit bourgeoisie: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. 

One Hundred and Ninety Two

Justin lost a wife, but found a job, so he’s happy.  He doesn’t understand women—or men, either—and is happy when working with computers instead of people.  But I foresee trouble, because Justin’s new boss seems to be as obtuse as he is.

He’s a young man, half Justin’s age, who knows little or nothing about computers.  He prides himself on being a manager, not a mere technician, and treats the programmers with contempt.  I told Justin to look for another job, but he insists he can handle his boss.  I suspect he's reluctant to look for another job because the divorce has left him temporarily financially strapped.

One Hundred and Ninety One

Do I want to die?  Certainly I don’t want to live.

I’ve stayed alive this long because I haven't let myself want anything.  If I let myself remember why I used to want to live, I’d remember why I now want to die, and I’d try again to kill myself. 

I don’t want to live, but a part of me still does, and I feel sorry for that part.  I think of it as a wounded animal that doesn’t know its wound is fatal.  My mind knows the wound is fatal, but my body doesn't.

One Hundred and Ninety

I read an article today that said sadism is the most common perversion.  This is absurd.  Ever since Reik wrote Masochism In Modern Man it's been common knowledge that masochism is the most common perversion.  How could it be otherwise when those who suffer vastly outnumber those who make them suffer?

Perhaps the author doesn't consider masochism a perversion.  Ever since Buddha in the East, and Christ in the West, it's been common knowledge that in this world suffering is natural and inevitable, and any attempt to alleviate it is futile.  Most of us therefore persuade ourselves, as masochists do, that our suffering has meaning.  But nothing has meaning.   

I'm not convinced that women suffer more than men do, as feminists claim.  Their suffering seems to me merely different in kind.  But the suffering men inflict on women is more perverse than what they inflict on other men, because they pretend they do it out of love.

Freud said women are naturally masochistic, and men naturally sadistic.  But he was honest enough to admit he didn't understand women.  He also said what we call love is a euphemism for the predator’s desire to capture and possess his prey.  To fully possess his beloved, he must kill her.

Poe said the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical of subjects.  She was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen off of a movie screen, and she didn't need a key light.  Everyone who knew her fell a little in love with her.

"Living is hard", she said.  "It's dying that's easy".  But it's easy only when you have someone who loves you, or pretends to love you, to help you die.

Perverts express their love in perverse ways.  But who, in this world, is not perverse?

Even in her coffin, she was beautiful.

The funeral director kept saying he’d done the best he could.  I told him he needn’t apologize.  Her face looked beautiful.

“But her body”, he said.  “What happened to her body?” So I told him about her doctor.

Freud said medical students become surgeons because it's a way they can express, and control, their sadism.  Her doctor expressed his, but he couldn't control it.

“I’m glad I’m dying,” she said. “I don’t want to see what’s coming.”

I didn’t want to see what was coming any more than she did, but my doctor kept me alive while hers tortured her until she begged me to help her die.  I didn’t, because I wanted her to live.

Some people who survive a loved one supposedly feel guilty.  I suspect it’s because they're relieved they survived while their beloved died.  I loved her more than I loved myself, and would have died in her place if I could.  But I’m not Christ.  Not even Christ was Christ.

I didn’t feel guilty for surviving while she died, even though when I was diagnosed we agreed we'd die together.  I blamed myself for not removing her from his care before it was too late, but not for entrusting her to his care in the first place.

I was skeptical of him, as I am of all authorities.  But I had to trust a doctor, and I didn’t blame myself for choosing the wrong one.  I blamed him.

I tried to kill myself after she died, but it’s not easy for an amateur to do it well.  I should have asked for help from an expert, someone like her doctor.

But that was long ago.  Now I no longer dream about her.  I no longer dream.

And I no longer think about suicide as often as I used to.  Not because my life is better now, because it’s worse.  But I no longer care.

I used to console myself that, bad as my own life is, I was helping to make the lives of others better.  At least they told me I was.  Now it’s clear that I, and they, were fooling ourselves.  Everyone’s life is bad, and getting worse, because we're all masochists who've entrusted ourselves to the care of sadists.

Could we have done differently, done better?  Could I?  Of course.  But every choice we make limits which choices remain, until freedom becomes fate.

One Hundred and Eighty Nine

I’ve been thinking of decadence. Or rather I’ve been dreaming of it.  I’ve always done my best thinking while dreaming.

Most people are no longer willing to think only the things we’re told it’s permitted to think.  But they’re not used to thinking their own thoughts, so they dream only of destroying this decadent old world without thinking how to replace it with a new and better one.      

That our civilisation is decadent is an idea almost as old as the idea of civilisation itself.  It arose when we decided what we call civilisation is what we call an illusion. 

We used to believe it used to be real, that there was once an age when we knew truths we’ve since forgotten.  Now we realise that if there is an ultimate truth, we never knew it and never will.  Our finite minds can’t know a truth that's infinite.  What’s true for us always was, and always will be, what we call myth, or illusion.  The ignorance we call our decadence is therefore not due to our having forgotten truths we used to know.  It’s due to our refusal to admit we know what we know.

We tell ourselves we’re infinitely curious, but that’s not true.  We look only for evidence that confirms we are what we think we are, and our world is what we think it is.  We don’t want to know the truth if it contradicts those myths.

Mystics have always told us we’re greater than we know, but we don’t want to be greater than we know if it means we’re only part of a greater whole which we don’t know, and should therefore care about those we call strangers because we’re all related.  We want to be told the self we know is great enough because even if we don’t know everything, we know enough.  We know everything worth knowing. 

We become less by ignoring that greater self of which the self we know is only a part.  But we also learn by doing it, because only by separating ourselves into the known and the unknown self, subject and object, can we look at and know ourselves.  But juggling both, as we dance from birth to death, is a difficult art.  When we give our attention to one more than the other, thinking one is real and the other an illusion, we stumble. 

Ever since we began to think, those we call wise debated which is real and which an illusion; but their assumption that it must be one or the other, not both, is itself an illusion.  It’s always both, because the truth is infinite and contains all the things that seem to our finite minds opposites.

In recent centuries we’ve come to believe that only the self we know is real.  Now we can no longer live together because we can no longer recognize our kinship with others.  But that was not our first mistake.

Ever since we began to think, we’ve assumed that for us to live together, some must rule and others must be ruled.  We assumed we needed rulers because we knew ourselves too well to imagine we could rule ourselves.  But our rulers are no more able to rule themselves than we are; even less are they able to rule us.  So they only pretended to rule us, and we only pretended to obey them.

We’ve lied to each other, and to ourselves, in order to live together.  Our polity has always been a conspiracy to which we’re all parties.  But now we’re tired of pretending we believe the lies, so our polity is breaking apart. 

Again and again we tried to take it apart and rebuild it better.  Every time we failed.  Now we’ve lost faith in ourselves and our ability to change things for the better.   We want only to destroy this decadent old world.

It’s too late for us to change, and we know it, however much we try not to know what we know; so we dream of decadence, as I’ve been doing ever since I began to think.  But this is not decadence, because there never was a better age from which ours has declined.  This is only a change.

Life on this planet is dying, but this is only a change.  What we call life is not the norm from which any change is a decline.  It’s not even the norm on this planet.  There are other ways of being. The norm, if there is one, seems to be what we call nonbeing only because ours is the only way of being that we know.  And we’ve cobbled together this way from what we call illusion as much as from what we call reality.