“Why is writing important? Mainly, out of egotism, I suppose. Because I want to be that persona, a writer, and not because there is something I must say. Yet why not that too? With a little ego-building — such as the fait accompli this journal provides — I shall win through to the confidence that I (I) have something to say, that should be said.” (Susan Sontag)
“The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. It is equivalent to a sense of abusing the present.” (Susan Sontag)
“I don’t believe a word I’m saying. It’s interesting, maybe valuable — but I don’t see how “true.” (Susan Sontag)
All night long I thought about my writing, not about eidetic writing but about my journal as if this document were the most important thing I ever wrote, this is so perhaps only because I haven´t written anything valuable in a long time and whatever I´ve written, I dislike to badly. I assume that I haven´t written anything since “Katechon” and two other things I wrote, the long letter-essay to Santiago (which I assume he of course never read) and something else, but I don´t remember exactly what. Having worked in advertising also has much to do with it, because it made me very dumb and mediocre about language and ideas in general but it also made me more intelligent in the sense that I discovered what it is to think when you put aside that insane egotism of the intellectual and all that sense of refinement around one´s being; at that point one realized that thinking simple thing is so very difficult, the most difficult exercises, that´s why modern authors are for the most part such a failure, they think that too much is the new brilliant, whereas I think enough is the new acceptable. Modern writing shouldn´t be exceptionally difficult and artsy, it shouldn´t vomit prosaic statements of grandeur but at the same time it should leverage from the street language. Writing is really very difficult I think, because that´s precisely my point because of what Sontag said, that I might say very interesting stuff when I´m not lazy as to restrict myself to plain prosaic stupidity, but I don´t know what there´s of truth about it. This is why I find this article for Pablo so challenging, I don´t know myself what truth is, and my sense of loss in the world is so intense that truth doesn´t make part of my agenda now. Current preoccupations: Mental health, immigration (most important), university studies, journal writing, retrieving memories, being beautiful (at least acting it out), not to run into legal trouble, my suitcases, ability to produce any intellectual work. I have between 3 and a half and 4 hours to produce the second half of an article that must make of me one of two things: Someone really famous and polemic, or elsehow someone very stupid and too talkative. Yet I spend my time writing journal entries, but I am glad about this day because finally I can write about something other than my miser state of mind. I´m not sure I´ll be able to produce the article. Maybe yes. The modern novel or fiction shouldn´t be difficult to write because it knows no traditions. The modern essay should be very difficult to write, because it is as close as we can come to surround the shores of truth.
Success: Father is not a bad guy really, not at all, he´s too frustrated though and his notion of success is proportional to providing for his family meals and a roof which is more than what most human kind would do, but then not enough for me. If I didn´t dislike so much his attitudes, perhaps I wouldn´t have a need to say anything. My writing aspirations tend to lapse each other all the time: Sometimes I do have something to say but I´m too concerned with the artist image to do it, other times I´m too sure about the artist image but I´ve got nothing to say so I just repeat myself.
Love: I don´t think I like my brothers, I believe they´re pushy, selfish and obnoxious, worse than that: They´re ignorant, watch TV all day long and aren´t interested in anything. This doesn´t mean I don´t love them, actually I realize now how much I love them, but honest truth is, I don´t quite like them. Am I in such a contradiction? Is it so bad to love and not like? Other examples would be one´s own country (not in my case), parents (at least at a certain age range), books (not sure about this one). Lovers could be a good example: We can love very badly people we don´t like too much, love has erratic behavior and it very spoiled and immature. Back to my brothers: My not liking them is not precisely about their defects and failures, I couldn´t be any less bothered about their shortcomings, my problem is their complete lack of intellectual and emotional virtues other than the gift of childhood.
Fear: I remember that Liron had a depression onset when he was about my age, then he got fat and then he became so uninteresting; both qualities he´s kept up to this day. I can´t bear the thought of that situation. Time to write the damn article, I did nothing for two days other than dwelling on my depression, now time to get something done. I can´t complain about stress.
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