Fluoxetine Journal 23.01.10

Had I started this journal yesterday, or in a yester year (and this now reminds of some English poem I no longer recall – it must be a really sad one), I would have known clearly that I am unable to write yet. Of course it is the recurrent mood, yet the topic is elsewhere… So many lively days, some of them full of sun and others bereft completely. In the middle of the jolts of the city one finds it very difficult to write, there is seemly nothing of interest that one could possibly tell, then there´s more to it like fluoxetine, cocaine and booze. Not that I am too interested in discussing this, suffice it with saying that the improvement that comes along with fluoxetine is just too significant, what makes me think I should not rule out the idea of a placebo altogether. Dullness, that is the key not good word for writing, because at 26 one should be certain that the ambition of being a writer instead of just writing, is kind of doing some justice to the years one has spent drifting away from disciplined training and skills development. I have been most inconstant with this journal ever since I left Jerusalem, then I also became lazy to write letters and lastly became lazy to write at all.

It is hard for me at this point to see the 10 in the calendar, it is like realizing it is year 10, and that so far nothing has been accomplished; the idleness have got to such leverage of options between evil and horror, and in between long hours of TV and endless nights of booze and dope, I think even the language is strained, there´s none of that rigid prosaic elegant and oftentimes archaic language, and this is not free really… It is not even about being lazy, it is about being not lifelike, and this permanent lack of inspiration, lack of music and of history, and the moment when a cold drunken cynicism replaced all the beauty in the ironic laughter that once vested heroes and leaders. There has been no time for real solitary philosophy these days, sorry, what am I saying, these years! There have been only two incidents worthy of remembering: The fact that unemployment and sobriety got me this far as to write “Katechon”, a piece I am still not sure I like, but I know it is good. It might be the only witness of these years, since I parted from the golden city. Then there was what I felt during one only night when Santiago Munevar was nothing but mine, all of his soul and body, it must have been less than 8 or 6 hours… They were worth everything; there was this incredible feeling that made sure I was yet alive in some kind of way, and then the hiding and the sorrow and the cold surgical farewell (which we never said) and the despair I sank into. This is a very superficial way to look at it, but also a very honest manner after all. I must admit that I haven´t forgot him that much, I can´t remember too well what he was like though, but I remember exactly what I felt and what three months later became this letter piece about Lukacs, with whom I fell in love through those days. Everything else has been important too, but in a lesser way. Although this is something I can´t check but until I will be able to write seriously again.

Then there´s more: Home-bound, as if any of this could be called a home, but then again, there´s no other. I´ve accepted it this time, and it is not humility, it is just a little reality-check for non-philosophers (one I haven´t done personally). But there´s this strange easiness now, as if it weren´t a curse but rather a sympathetic way to bid farewell. 5 days without a fag. At least I don´t ruin my mornings so early, at least for now. For the first time, being home doesn´t seem sick, it is either that I am too cynical already to care about myself even or that it is a sign of the times. My memories of Israel become so vivid now, not even about the great feats, but more like being some places, the bus rides, the mornings, some friends, conversations, the very casual and real. Perhaps that is all I can tell in order not to make a literati cliché out of my own life. I can´t object against my mistakes but I am not lightheaded enough to see them as banal, perhaps there is no one as critical of myself as I am. Anyway, enough with this for today, I just know I will be in Israel in a few months, if not weeks, I just need to figure out how.

Remembering Virginia Woolf: We never have complete emotions about the present but only about the past, that is why the past is always beautiful. What is truly incredible about these days is that sometimes I recover little bits from the past, what shows that I actually do have a past and no matter how crude and brutal those days were, today they appear to me as cunningly beautiful. A story: In 1999 or maybe the year before, no, it was 1999, two Americans showed up at the door (I don´t think my English was too interesting then nor were they too good-looking, but heck, what could I know, they were Americans!) in order to speak with my father about some whatever religion, and my father obviously was not interested. Let´s not talk about him now. I don´t think I had been too interested in religion then, or perhaps yes, I can recall something from the year before at the Catholic school (which I badly loved) when I was giving this lecture about women and heck, about Virgin Mary, I can only laugh about it now. I think in a way this was only interesting because I obviously was erotically fascinated by Juan Carlos, the ethics teacher. I also remember all those crazy letters I wrote him, I should not know what I was doing, really, how embarrassing. But then even later in life, I wasn´t ashamed of embarrassing myself through letters so I guess there´s no point in regretting from earlier years. Once I wrote a piece about this so-called Catholic school, but all might have been a lie, or a made-up story, I will need to read it again this week. Anyway, back to the Americans: I wasn´t too interested in their talk, it was just the fact that I had friends and that my friends were foreigners. I don´t think I had any friends in school, not that year, although looking back at the years that passed afterwards, I did make some friends, right now, I remember Daniel Rojas, and I even think he is kind of a beauty, but not a beauty I feel exhilarating about. I actually think he is very interesting but I would another day or two in his company to figure out what does interest me about him. The Americans belonged to this funny Mormon Church and what now looks like a parody of something I took very seriously back then. The older I am getting, the more homosexual I feel, but also more free. This is important to notice because I have mistaken often faith with sexual desire, intellectual desire with both faith and sexual desire, sexual desire with love, love with condescendence, infatuation with passion and most sadly, abandonment with fear from love. I changed my faith, or actually betrayed my faith, only for the sake of male bonding. At my age this is now different: There is no male bonding without physicality.

Enough with sex. Back to 1999 during my times of prophecy at this church of young men, I spread the word of God to some very nice family, but like really nice with a very young little boy (that I would take to bed today, or at least would lean against a wall, after all same age than Ariel Levy) and ultimately they received the faith and were baptized and grew into it with time. Coming back and seeing them this morning was rather gleeful, because they are still as nice as they used to be back then, and they are a vivid reminder that I have a past, and that is really something so good to know right now, when I am just about to leave some miser present. I am lying, it hasn´t been miser, it´s not even about being what I want, it´s just not mine, not true or not true enough. Same as with Ivan Kellmer, I´ve changed the lives of some people, but mine I haven´t changed in one bit for years with no end. I am exaggerating again. The whole church visit seemed illusory to me, deceitful but hilarious. I am disappointed because this journal is really uninteresting and unreadable, but then again, I am glad it is not false, and after a break from writing of three years, I can´t ask for more.

I should try to connect the signals from the past week into one “slide”, as my former boss would love to say. Let´s try and recall: I have to work on my good name (this is very stupid, but so real in this world), there´s a lot of wisdom in keeping quiet and of course not every friend is a friend, I am one of those for example, haven´t been such a good friend, but my loyalties are all too clear but all too few. There´s no such a thing as family, but there´s always family and the fact I am not another David Silva is attested by my most recent homecoming. I am open to declare now that my stepmother is not bad, she´s just plain stupid and her mother a witch, a real one, well she´s not casting spells but hiding my breakfast bread and badmouthing me, that is enough for a witch. Then this morning at the church, talking about the joy that one encounters when facing adversity… I would like to badmouth so many people here, but I am just waiting for my wit to return. I am very frustrated about my own work, or what it could be yet I am fully aware that this won´t improve with any studying whatsoever. The situation can only worsen but then I guess this is part of what philosophy is supposed to be about, and alas! Am I talking about philosophy? This is news. What a crazy enterprise is this, to write a journal without interpretation, without mediators and at the same time trying not to die from saying it aloud. It is not that the situation is not sufficiently grave but the issue is that I am so locked from inside and such locks are something to be concerned because they avoid any real feeling of unhappiness and misery but at the same time they also call off all happiness as well. It is time to try and write something.