"Tragedy may be defined, here, as an attempt to 'recover' the distance which exists between man and things as a new value; it would be then a test, an ordeal in which victory would consist in being vanquished. Tragedy therefore appears as the last invention of humanism to permit nothing to escape: since the correspondence between man and things has finally been denounced, the humanist saves his empire by immediately instituting a new form of solidarity, the divorce itself becoming a major path to redemption.
"There is still almost a communion, but a painful one, perpetually in doubt and always deferred, its effectiveness in proportion to its inaccessible character. Divorce-as-a-form-of-marriage is a trap - and it is a falsification.
"We see in effect to what degree such a union is perverted: instead of being the quest for a good, it is now the benediction of an evil. Unhappiness, failure, solitude, guilt, madness - such are the accidents of our existence which we are asked to entertain as the best pledge of our salvation. To entertain, not to accept: it is a matter of feeding them at our expense while continuing to struggle against them. For tragedy involves neither a true acceptance nor a true rejection. It is the sublimation of a difference.
"Let us retrace, as an example, the functioning of 'solitude.' I call out. No one answers me. Instead of concluding that there is no one there - which could be a pure and simple observation, dated and localized in space and time - I decide to act as if there were someone there, but someone who, for one reason or another, will not answer. The silence which follows my outcry is henceforth no longer a true silence; it is charged with a content, a meaning, a depth, a soul - which immediately sends me back to my own. The distance between my cry, to my own ears, and the mute (perhaps deaf) interlocutor to whom it is addressed becomes an anguish, my hope and my despair, a meaning in my life. Henceforth nothing will matter except this false void and the problems it raises for me. Should I call any longer? Should I shout louder? Should I utter different words? I try once again... Very quickly I realize that no one will answer but the invisible presence I continue to create by my call obliges me to hurl my wretched cries into the silence forever. Soon the sound they make begins to stupefy me. As though bewitched, I call again... and again. My solitude, aggravated, is ultimately transmuted into a superior necessity for my alienated consciousness, a promise of my redemption. And I am obliged, if this redemption is to be fulfilled, to persist until my death, crying out for nothing.
"According to the habitual process, my solitude is then no longer an accidental, momentary datum of my existence. It becomes part of me, of the entire world, of all men: it is our nature, once again. It is solitude forever." Alain Robbe-Grillet
"There is still almost a communion, but a painful one, perpetually in doubt and always deferred, its effectiveness in proportion to its inaccessible character. Divorce-as-a-form-of-marriage is a trap - and it is a falsification.
"We see in effect to what degree such a union is perverted: instead of being the quest for a good, it is now the benediction of an evil. Unhappiness, failure, solitude, guilt, madness - such are the accidents of our existence which we are asked to entertain as the best pledge of our salvation. To entertain, not to accept: it is a matter of feeding them at our expense while continuing to struggle against them. For tragedy involves neither a true acceptance nor a true rejection. It is the sublimation of a difference.
"Let us retrace, as an example, the functioning of 'solitude.' I call out. No one answers me. Instead of concluding that there is no one there - which could be a pure and simple observation, dated and localized in space and time - I decide to act as if there were someone there, but someone who, for one reason or another, will not answer. The silence which follows my outcry is henceforth no longer a true silence; it is charged with a content, a meaning, a depth, a soul - which immediately sends me back to my own. The distance between my cry, to my own ears, and the mute (perhaps deaf) interlocutor to whom it is addressed becomes an anguish, my hope and my despair, a meaning in my life. Henceforth nothing will matter except this false void and the problems it raises for me. Should I call any longer? Should I shout louder? Should I utter different words? I try once again... Very quickly I realize that no one will answer but the invisible presence I continue to create by my call obliges me to hurl my wretched cries into the silence forever. Soon the sound they make begins to stupefy me. As though bewitched, I call again... and again. My solitude, aggravated, is ultimately transmuted into a superior necessity for my alienated consciousness, a promise of my redemption. And I am obliged, if this redemption is to be fulfilled, to persist until my death, crying out for nothing.
"According to the habitual process, my solitude is then no longer an accidental, momentary datum of my existence. It becomes part of me, of the entire world, of all men: it is our nature, once again. It is solitude forever." Alain Robbe-Grillet
* * *
I was planning on writing a recap of the year, but what for? I know the mistakes I've made, and I know the necessary changes in mentality I am taking to fix them; there's no need to enumerate any further, however positive the intent. Anyway, the above says everything I needed to say.
I understand that I will be okay on my own.
My laptop has been officially pronounced dead. I will continue to sporadically use F's while I'm staying with family. I am a little irked because I had planned on using these two weeks off of work as time for writing (and yes, I sadly need a computer to do so properly), but such will have to wait. Instead I'm reading and taking lots of notes, which I hope to elaborate upon once I acquire a new machine.
I understand that I will be okay on my own.
* * *
My laptop has been officially pronounced dead. I will continue to sporadically use F's while I'm staying with family. I am a little irked because I had planned on using these two weeks off of work as time for writing (and yes, I sadly need a computer to do so properly), but such will have to wait. Instead I'm reading and taking lots of notes, which I hope to elaborate upon once I acquire a new machine.
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