A city

I spent the past four months as a visiting scholar at an American university. I wrote a substantial part of my dissertation, swam every single day, and kept up with my jobs.

I had intense aesthetic experiences. I was suicidal and cheerful. I was not bored once.

I found an impossible love that made me break most of my rules on dating.

I met a great number of people that were interested in what I had to say.

I found that I can be outgoing when it is necessary.

I realized that I am perfectly able to live on my own. I do not like to share a place with strangers.

I was able to write again. I wrote short poems. I shall not publish them.

I experienced several bouts of depression. I was surprised by my ability to handle them.

I felt alone, but not in a bad way.

I experienced the selfishness and cruelty of two persons I formerly loved.

I was mugged. Somehow, I found myself trying to empathize with the mugger.

I found a foreign city that somehow felt like home.

Reactions on the idea of forgiveness

I am a terrible dancer. I can only dance when drunk. Even then I am a terrible dancer. I apologize profusely for this. I can only attain an ability through cognitive impairment.

-

The Buddha, on the noble follower: "When he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'" (Adittapariyaya Sutta)

-

There is no more beyond determinate existence. It is done in that nothing exists beyond present time. Liberation consists in release from the desire to keep existence as it is or as it were.

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To forgive oneself entails ceasing to desire. That is, not desiring to keep things as they are or as they were, but accepting their fleetingness.

-

Thus, desire and stubbornness frustrate any chance of forgiveness. This I know.

-

The desire to prevail is self-defeating. Its object is unattainable and unfitting. Happiness cannot be kept, for it is real and therefore fleeting.

-

And so is misery.

-

I am aware that I will die someday. I do not want to die, but my desire to prevail is self-defeating. My desire to forgive is not, but I am unable to forgive myself and others. This, I think, occurs because of my desire to keep the form of existence with which I am familiar.

-

Blake claims that virginity desires, but acts not. He also claims that infertile desire breeds pestilence. Refusing to act leads to stagnation.

-

I dance when I am drunk. I also become deeply self-destructive. I rage and go on self-harming sprees because I confute my every desire. I deploy every desire and hope to be destroyed again.

-

I am an expert in starting over. I have been many versions of myself.

-

As one grows up, pain becomes deeper. One is supposed to become stronger. I can love with greater strength, which necessarily entails that the hollow once I no longer love will be greater.

-

Pain can lead to compassion. Pain can lead to humility. Yet, I am still unable to forgive.

-

Sheer force of will cannot remove deeply entrenched pain. Pain is supposed to bleed slowly; to become a part of who I am. The unconscious recalls old wounds under new circumstances. Harmful behavior repeats itself and tries to achieve different results.

-

I really need to stop doing things that are bad for me.

untitled

You have one baby, I have two.

I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.

I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.

We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,

Me and you.

—Sylvia Plath - Lesbos

you talk
but do not mean
this is all we are
thoughts and not words
silence and not noise
distance and not contact
etcetera

I came from the forest
and it would be expected
that I learned
how to read minds
but I did not learn
from the forest
and its dark mysteries

when I was in the hospital
I learned about depth
and I thought sadness
was depth

just my luck
I am always sad
I am a sad
pathetic
color
sad sad sad

and then I left
and I was not
expected to leave

you left me
but somehow
did not mean it
and I was expected
to know how
to read minds
as I was expected
to learn
from the mysteries
of the forest

I was expected
to know
how to unfold
to develop
to fold
and break
and bend
but I did not
the forest kept silent
and I thought
silence was the lesson
but I was wrong

"mass is only useful
because of the silence"
so I kept silent
I am silent
and I will keep
silence to myself
because
really
it does not matter

I found an abandoned dock
and it was mine
it is not useful
so we have that in common

you wrote me a long poem
and said how deep
and powerful
are my emotions
and how lucky you felt
because I showed them to you

my birthday was last week
yesterday was yours
and you wrote me a poem
and I flinched

you wore yellow
the color of sulphur
demonic yellow
and wrote me a poem

I was expected
to keep silent
and you wrote a long poem
and expected me
to keep silent

you do not care
who you hurt
honey
sweetheart
apple of my eye
kitten
vixen
you do not care

you invoke sulphur
honey
sad girl
golden lotus
pink chain
yellow wall

you expected me
to keep silent
I know your name
and I invoked you

you expected me
honey
sweetheart
kitten
vixen
sad girl
I will not forgive you

Different kinds of reactions

E invites me to a party. As I walk to her house, a man asks me for money. I tell him I am Mexican. He lets me go. Seconds later, he returns and demands all of my money. Minutes later, I talk to a policewoman. I apologize several times because I am unable to properly construe the events.

-

S is going through a hard time. She barely speaks. I do not know what can I say to confort her because I lost my words. I keep silent for two days.

-

I drank too much and I am about to vomit. In front of the toilet, I realize how far from home I am. But the place I live in is no longer home. There is no place I can designate with that word.

-

I run into U while grocery shopping. He asks me what I have been up to. I tell him I read a book on Freud. I tell him about my experience with psychoanalysis. I stumble with my own words. I am not sure if I actually finished the treatment, but I do not know if there is such a thing as a cure through words. Words.

-

English is not my native language. I never talk in English unless it is absolutely necessary. When I hold casual conversations, I have a very noticeable accent and forget ordinary words. However, whenever I talk about academic topics, most of my accent goes away and I can fluently handle complex terms.

-

A swimmer takes the lane next to mine. She is incredibly fast; most likely a professional. We recognize each other because we swim at the same regular hours. Whenever we rest on the same side of the pool, we look at each other. I think sometimes I smile at her, but I cannot tell if she smiles back because I am nearsighted.

-

I dream about A, my dead relative. She appears every few years in my dreams. She always leaves abruptly. She says she has to go. I respond by telling her how much I miss her. I feel a deep sadness every time. I would have never told her something like that when she was alive. But this time is different. She makes very clear where she is: "I still have some years to go." "It is weird. I miss you, but I would never say something like this while you were still alive", I respond. "You said enough. At least to me."

I feel the same sadness. I cry, even though I did not cry at her wake. She tells me that her visit can invigorate her enough to "kick the shit out of Aeneas". She disappears. On the next morning, I read about a kind of purgatory in the sixth book of the Aeneid. I realize what she meant.

-

After graduating, I lost the ability to write. Nothing came to mind. I lost my words in another sense: I could write long essays on academic topics, but I could no longer write poetry. After a few weeks in another country, I wrote a poem. I can write again, but not in my native language. My words have shifted.

Reactions on the concept of despair

I.

Conscious desire is always obscure. When I claim to desire, I am the one who does so. But there is no determinate I. I cannot define myself as if I were something foreign to me. Thus, every self-determination is self-defeating.

II.

Traumatic events are not superseded by means of their being in the past. What has shaped me is now a part of who I am. This thing that I am is shaped by past events.

III.

For the unconscious does not take time into account.

IV.

No self-determination will do. Claiming to be flawed is a way of protecting myself from the possibility of change. Thus, possibility is a form of denial; but what I am becomes determined by this very act of denial.

V.

My relating to the world as my other; that is, as something other than me which I am not, shapes me and not the world.

VI.

My relating to others, whether negative or positive, constrains me to their denial or acceptance.

VII.

Therefore, the struggle for recognition is in a way the struggle to be determined by the other.

VIII.

Sadness is pleasurable in that it entails the acceptance of the negative relation to the world.

IX.

But conflating sadness and depth, as I used to do, will not do. For depth does not entail a better understanding of the self or the world. And neither does sadness, which resigns itself to the denial of the external.

X.

Thus, despair does not lead to anything other than itself. The deepest, most authentic despair will not do. It will not lead into faithfulness.

XI.

For faith is an empty predicate.

XII.

Faithfulness is not properly self-deceit. Faith affirms one relation while denying any other possibility. There is no possible outcome for faith. Faith leads to the certainty of the necessity of the expected outcome.

XIII.

The believer is not concerned with the outcome. It does not depend on them. Therefore, the final product of faith is the most radical form of self-denial.

XIV.

Desire, as Blake pointed out, turns sacredness into vacuum. The categorial mistake relies in opposing desire and reason.

XV.

"Where man is not, nature is barren." Blake's Proverbs of Hell point towards the general idea where opposites are unified. Not for us, but themselves.

XVI.

But no further theological commitment is necessary in order to grasp the totality. And we do not have resources to see the unity. Thus, nature is indeed barren.

XVII.

Temporal beings cannot be completed. Their mere existence rejects contradiction. Thus, the single idea of continuous, stable happiness conflates it with depth.

XVIII.

For there is no deeper understanding in accepting sadness, or despair, or happiness.

XIX.

Reality, therefore, remains elusive.

You and me

le temps passe

Aujourd’hui un dimanche de la fin du mois

Mars 1942 à Paris les chants des oiseaux domestiques

sont comme de petites flammes bien visibles brûlant calmement

dans le silence. Je suis désespérée

Mais il ne s’agit pas de moi.

—Dora Maar - Les Grandes Constructions

Lost the ability to make a definitive statement.
I think you should check the pressure of your tires.
They seem low.
They are always low,
grinding against the pavement.
But then again, so am I.

Again, again, again,
we are unable to make a statement.
To say once and for all
or again, again, again
how your tires are so low.

But it is not about me.
It is about your tires
and my inability to say yes
and how I always assume the outcome.

I can see a decommissioned chimney
from my window,
and hear the crows.
I complain about the birds
and the chimneys.
I weigh everything.
From arguments
to words
to shadows.

I am a hurricane
and you are the sea.
Hurricanes change the colors
of the sea,
but do not stay.
Hurricanes perish
because their entire being
consists in a violent,
colorful storm.

It is not about me.
We were a storm,
or an explosion;
violent and colorful.
We were a poem
grinding against the pavement.
But it is not about me.

We were the depth
and the shallow;
the elite
and the scum.
Were.

I can see two girls playing in their yard
from my window.
I can taste the noise
of early crows.

There is a police woman
that smiles at me when I cross her street.
Some days she is the only person I talk to.
She tells me to have a good night.
I wish she does as well.

I discovered an abandoned dock
by the lake.
I would take you there
and get on one knee.
But it is filled with shit
from all the seagulls.
It has been defiled.

We are defiled;
were: there is no
'us' anymore.

An old lady came
and talked to me
about her poetry.
She told me to write again,
because my gaze told her
that I felt miserable.
She was wrong.
I struggle,
because everything is tainted by absence.

I was not feeling very well
when I wrote you something
which I did not send.
I wrote some words
where I felt miserable
and my heart was beating slow
and I was dying.
I am dying.
But you will not know;
I deleted the words
and sentences.

It's great,
isn't it?
You can see the lake
and the city from up here.
This is a great city
where people are nice to me
and smile
and are interested
in the things I say.

There are days where
I do not speak.
And days where I do.
I got drunk at the park
with some people.
We looked at the lake
and drank from a flask.
And I felt alone.

A girl called Yinying
talked to me for hours.
Her name means shadow.
But that is not what it means.
Her name comes from two cities,
like her.

Would you read what I wrote?
I used to be a decent writer.
I wrote things for you,
but did not send them.

I wrote a poem about you
and me.
As if you were to read it
and know I am fine
and still alive.
But it is not about me.
It was always about you.