In the opening essay of The Rambler, Samuel Johnson writes:
The difficulty of the first address on any new occasion, is felt by every man in his transactions with the world, and confessed by the settled and regular forms of salutation which necessity has introduced into all languages.
Perverse joy and delight overcome my body every time I stumble across a passage about how difficult it is to write a satisfying introduction paragraph. It is as if the ghost of Archimedes possesses me in that instant: εὕρηκα (eureka!) I know what I must quote at the top of my Substack post for this month!
Intuitively, writing these entries shouldn’t be so grueling. After all, so much has happened! The arrival of Spring, the end of Hillary, my foray into the pyramids, wild dog chases in Turkey—April has proven plentiful. So why are these pages so barren and sterile when so much Life lies behind them? Maybe Baudelaire can provide some insight:
Après une débauche, on se sent toujours plus seul, plus abandonné. Au moral comme au physique, j'ai toujours eu la sensation du gouffre, non seulement du gouffre du sommeil, mais du gouffre de l'action, du rêve, du souvenir, du désir, du regret, du remords, du beau, du nombre, etc.
J'ai cultivé mon hystérie avec jouissance et terreur. Maintenant, j'ai toujours le vertige, et aujourd'hui, 23 janvier 1862, j'ai subi un singulier avertissement, j'ai senti passer sur moi le vent de l'aile de l'imbécillité.
After a debauchery, we always feel more alone, more abandoned. Morally as well as physically, I have always had the sensation of the abyss, not only the abyss of sleep, but the abyss of action, of dreams, of memory, of desire, of regret, of remorse, of beauty, of number, etc.
I cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror. Now I am always dazed, and today, January 23, 1862, I suffered a singular warning, I felt pass over me a breathe of wind from the wing of imbecility.
Indeed, It has become a personal cliche for me to spend more than half of my entries complaining about writing instead of, you know, actually writing. As I writhe in agony rewriting the same three paragraphs to death, sometimes I have to remind myself that there is not some ontologically evil force compelling me to press publish every month—I am, shockingly, doing this out of my own free will and volition.
It is a serious indictment against my character that I frequently find myself in these dubious and self-inflicted predicaments. Indeed, one must look no further than the hundreds of unfinished drafts littered across my literary graveyards for proof, the plurality of which begins with some apology. I know what I must do. I recognize the virtues and nobility. Yet, I habitually fall prey to my passions and fail to execute what I know to be moral imperatives. Like Joyce’s Dublin, my fatal defect consists of paralysis.
If you have been around me long enough, you must have, at one point or another, heard me repeat the adage: less freedom is more freedom. The less “freedom to,” the more “freedom from.” When I say that, I mean that I hate feeling responsible for my own life. When moments of inflection arrive, the cowardly urge within causes me to freeze, rendering me incapacitated and torpefied. Try as I might, I cannot master my indecision, leaving me defenseless against the onslaught of violent repercussions that I know will leave devastated.
To soothe my psyche, I devise ex post facto justifications for my paralysis and explain my problems away through series of never-ending appeals to faux rationality. What I lack in decisiveness, I make up with excuses and alibis. If for a moment, I come to believe that insidious lie: with enough intellectualization, I can discover the Key to conquering my weakness of will.
But if my indecision is my fatal flaw, my love for taking grandstands and grandiose proclamations is my principal vice. Plagued by the ramifications of my own inaction, I move to produce spirited speeches to those who never even consented to be my audience. These outbursts of passion offer fleeting solace, a sense of sovereignty and strength regained through performance and momentary conviction. Yet, beneath the false momentum and literary flourish lies the uncomfortable Truth: I speak not to persuade others but to convince myself that I am capable of change.
Will I ever break away from my all-too-familiar inaction-speech cycle? Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy the tragic extent of my failings.
Reflecting on my travels this month, I am reminded, yet again, of Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse:
Either woe or well-being, sometimes I have a craving to be engulfed. This morning (in the country), the weather is mild, overcast. I am suffering (from some incident). The notion of suicide occurs to me, pure of any resentment (not blackmailing anyone); an insipid notion; it alters nothing (“breaks” nothing), matches the color (the silence, the desolation) of this morning.
Another day, in the rain, we're waiting for the boat at the lake; from happiness, this time, the same outburst of annihilation sweeps through me. This is how it happens sometimes, misery or joy engulfs me, without any particular tumult ensuing: nor any pathos: I am dissolved, not dismembered; I fall, I flow, I melt. Such thoughts-grazed, touched, tested (the way you test the water with your foot)—can recur. Nothing solemn about them. This is exactly what gentleness is.
For those of you who were looking forward to a long-winded travel diary, I am sorry to disappoint—the Barthes quote is all that I will note about the journey. While drafting, I was suddenly reminded of a conversation I had with Dylan about his New York to San Francisco train ride. At some point during his visit, I asked him: “Will you write something about it?” He paused for a while and replied: “No.” In choosing silence, he honored the moment more deeply than any sentence ever could. Indeed, there is beauty and merit in keeping certain memories to yourself. It ensures that the unwritten experiences remain yours and yours alone, untarnished by foreign gaze.
Sorry. You just had to be there.
Ancient Greek Word of the Month: ἀκρασία (akrasia)
ἀκρασία, derived from ἀ- (alpha privative prefix, not) + κράτος (power, strength) + -ία (noun forming suffix), can be translated in a few ways: lack of power, weakness of will, lack of self-control, incontinence.
In Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between two types of ἀκρασία, περιπέτεια (peripeteia, impetuous) and ἀσθένεια (astheneia, weak).
The person who is weak (ἀσθένεια) goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By contrast, the impetuous (περιπέτεια) person does not go through a process of deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error.
It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did perform.
Following the Delphic maxim, γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know thyself), I must place myself squarely within the ἀσθένεια camp. As ἀκρασία is halfway between virtue and vice, it ought to not be a permanent home. Eventually, the soul will demand direction—the only remaining imperative is to commit to the path of virtue.
Reading:
The Will to Change by Bell Hooks
A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Watching:
Again…
Erm…
Listening:
Ideal June Video by Chanel Beads
Diplomat’s Son by Vampire Weekend
Oxford Town by Bob Dylan
Here’s to painting a prettier picture—together.
another wonderful piece… i hope you enjoy the will to change
Quit reading the wrong Miller.