I’m tired of living down here. In the lowlands. In the shameful lowlands. And you’re down here with me.
Do I really feel shame? Am I capable of shame? But I don’t really feel it. Or I feel other things, too. Mitigating things.
Which means I’m always distant from it, shame. Shame should saturate you, if it is to be real shame. It should fill you completely. You shouldn’t be able to … discuss it. To … ironize about it. Shame should prompt some action. It’s supposed to make us behave a certain way. And does it?
Desperate – are we desperate, philosopher? I think I might be desperate … in some recess … some buried part of me. The best part, maybe. My soul, maybe.
A spiritual desperation. A desire to be helped. From on high. By the breaking in of some … transcendence. Does that happen? Could that happen?
A miracle – that’s what I want.
An abomination … that’s the word I want to use. It sounds very horrifying, doesn’t it? Am I an abomination? Are you? Is this … whole … situation … abominable? Maybe, philosopher.
Maybe all this self-disgust will lead somewhere. If it’s really self-disgust. If it isn’t just talk about self-disgust.
A tissue of lies. But I don’t mind lying. Or I don’t mind enough.
It’s like I live everything at an immense distance. Like I don’t really coincide with anything. I’m not here, that’s what I think. I’m not present. Where am I? Lost in vagueness. In some … impersonal daydreaming.
It’s not even my daydream, or that’s how it feels. I’m not mine. I’m not here. I’m away somewhere. And I don’t think I’d even like to be real. This isn’t my world. I didn’t ask to be born into it. That’s what adolescents always say. Do they still say those things?
Emotional devastation – am I capable of that? Is anyone capable of it anymore?
What if my husband found out about all this? Would he be emotionally devastated? Is he capable of that? I don’t believe it. I think he’d be … miffed. Irritated, maybe. But not devastated. I might be wrong. Maybe I should tell him, just to see the effect …
Am I a sadist do you think? Or is it a masochist? Which one means what? Or am I both? I don’t think I’m deliberately cruel. None of this is deliberate. Unless it’s unconsciously deliberate.
The torture is that we’re not tortured. But whose torture is that? Our real guilt is that we don’t feel guilt. What’s sad is that we don’t feel sad. We don’t feel anything. We’re muted. It’s like everything been turned down for us. We don’t have an interior … life …
Work in Progress 