WOW.
I want to talk a lot of Thomas Bernhard's YES
Or more accurately, here I present quotes that seem to perfectly explain how it feels to be in utter contemplation, confusion, and sickness of the mind.
wait...also, i just have a lot to say about the book.
reading this book is like not being able to completely catch your breath. it feels like the moment you run out of air after you try to fit too many words into one breath. it is too fast and spins around in circles, but if you think the same way, it feels natural. it is rushed and hectic, a stream of realization that comes to quickly and makes me think half of it is wrong. when i read this i think i am hitting a brick wall that leads to another brick wall and some of the brick walls are bouncy and others aren't so I keep rebounding off the bouncy ones and then crashing into the hard ones, getting dizzy, and falling back again onto a bouncy one and the whole thing starts all over again until I hit one of the walls so hard after repeated brain damage so i eventually just pass out, or eventually, I die.
THE ANARCHIST.
"she lived in permanent fear of catching cold…or of indeed continually freezing to death."
The way people shield themselves with objects. Using coats, and jackets, pulling hoodie sleeves far over ones hands to protect them from harm. Special items of clothing that offer comfort and protection from some irrational fear. The irrational fear of freezing to death, fear of being left alone, cold exists in a woman all the time, a cold heart maybe, but probably a chilling fear of something she will never reveal. This is why people need their beds, even if they aren't tired, and they need small stuffed animals, even if they are no longer children. I still pull my blanket over my head, because as a child it protected me from something I feared in my room, and now I still pull my blanket over my head to protect me from something I fear that exists everywhere.
"such a person who perceives everything and..moreover continually, is not popular, more often feared, and people have always guarded themselves against such a person ..a dangerous person and dangerous persons are not only feared but hated, and in that respect I have to describe myself as a hated person"
You show people a part of themselves they don't like (or haven't bothered to accept, haven't bothered to notice)
The world's problems became obsessively suffocating. There was no escape. Unable to drive a car, unable to eat out of packaging, or even throw anything away, or even purchase any new item without banging my head against walls. Unable to walk around my house without screaming out theories about the tired way people on television talk to too many other people who cannot turn it off, the circuits should be cut. The disgusting human filth permeating everything I saw and everything I was. I was trying to rid myself of objects by pretending objects should not exist. The wrongs of the government, of power of things beyond a citizens control, of obsession with the nature of the society and system built around oneself "Europe had perhaps triggered this catastrophe, because everything in politics was developing precisely the opposite direction from what I had been convinced was correct and from what I am to this day convinced is correct. Political conditions at that point had suddenly deteriorated in a way which can only be described as dreadful and deadly… greed and hypocrisy were suddenly again at the helm just as those in power were once again ruthlessly working towards the extermination of the intellect… rulers to engage in head hunting and mind hunting" Patriot act anyone??? We chose a President we could picture drinking a beer with, who we could picture being in bed with….
But with this person who finds fault with a legitimate deterioration of the model and sense of a particular society could easily be discredited. In most situations, the sickness that ensues, as a result of the terrible disintegration of what is right and what needs to be upheld to ensure the utility of the people, is an acceptable and entirely necessary reaction. But on the other hand, this type of person could also be susceptible to eternal and at times irrational dissatisfaction with any type of system because they are simply continually aware of the system. Those in denial of the state of the system are able to live simple lives, unaffected by the mass atrocity around them because they claim and most times do not feel what those keen observers constantly feel stabbing the core of their being. The people who feel the knife are unable to find happiness in their personal successes, personal relationships, personal gains, because the depression of many is felt within the body of one. One person cannot bear to feel the pain waves that flow through the earth, and this causes one facet of the sickness, a terrible facet, one that can only be eliminated by being ignored. This person is only an anarchist.
"Anarchy she said and no more, after that she was again silent. An anarchist, I had said to her in the larch-wood, was only a person who practiced anarchy, she now reminded me everything in an intellectual mind is anarchy, she said, repeating another of my quotations. Society, no matter what society, must always be turned upside down and abolished, she said, and what she said were again my words…You are lost, she said, just as I am lost. You may escape to wherever you choose."
WOMEN
The disheartening part of this work is the way Bernhard presents the Persian woman. He seems to be saying that women can never exist as individual entities, rather they exist only to shape and improve everything around them, never themselves. I was thinking that this belief could be true if you see women only as child bearers. In situations where women do not bear children, they find men to create in an image they see fit, as if they would do to a child. Bernhard presents women as sculptors and men/children as clay, but the sculptor's face is never seen, because it doesn't exist to the clay, the clay awareness the origin of its shape. The women bears the burden of knowledge, of how things came to be, of how the sculpture was created, and since the sculptures around her will never know that, she is always alone. her sickness grows when the clay no longer needs to be shaped. The completed sculpture stands alone as well, but the sculpture has other sculptures surrounding it, they are not alone, and they are happy. It seems that women who desire to have children are rid of the sickness but, as you can, see in countless situations in literature and art, you see women in depression, and the cause of this depression is left unsolved until death.
"in that respect the Swiss had been extremely fortunate to come across the Persian woman with her truly supreme willpower"
When the Swiss no longer needed the Persian to clear his path, to bring on success, to shape him, she was discarded, her purpose for living terminated, and she was condemned. "Her own ambition for an absolutely and exclusively exceptional career for her life companion had taken root in her mind and her own existence ahead ultimately become totally subordinated to the existence of the Swiss. I t is well known that women like the Persian woman are capable of giving up everything for the career of a men like the Swiss and the Persian woman had in fact given up everything for her life companion."
It is hard for women to rise up against the tide of this tendency to give in to subordination, the desire to relinquish personal responsibility in the name of shaping another, thus making it hard and nearly impossible for women to surpass man in any type of social or emotion situation. I have heard the argument that evolution has created a situation where a woman must pretend to be mentally inept, for the sake of survival, because in most situations, the man would physically be able to kill her, her behavior becomes simply the only method of survival.
And why does this happen so often in my life? I am always going to shows or performances presented by only my male friends. as for my friend's bands, well, I can think of 5 or more that consist of only men. All my friends who perform comedy support each other, they are all male, with the exception of perhaps a handful of women. Writers, filmmakers, photographers everyone I go to see in an organized fashion, other than in a bedroom, they have a penis. I don't understand, it seems like women don't want to support each other, or they are insecure, they are scared, and they can never live up to the men. They can only support the men, even though they may have even more talent. Men piss on their territory all the time everywhere and cheer each other on while they do it. And also,
this even applies to the most sensitive theatrical male as well as
the
football
player. it
seems to be the woman's fault, but if you have never felt what it is like to be a ("obviously doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl" - virgin suicides) yes, if you've never felt what it is like to be 13-year-old girl, then you have no idea what you are talking about. Especially if you have never had sickness of the mind.
OBJECTS CAUSE SUFFERING
:"…and almost invariably in my sick state, I had the feeling in that very room that the objects were crushing and stifling me, but now I could contemplate them calmly and in my observation, was left alone by them. There was no thought preventing me from regarding those objects, cabinets, chairs, table, desk and so on in such a way that all these objects appeared to me as natural and not in the least terrible as they had mostly seemed to me, as indeed most of the time I have to regard all objects as if they were crushing and stifling me. In that observation … I had reduced all those objects in Moritz box-file room to their natural functions. "
The foreign bodies around man, created by man, but not by each individual who exists around these bodies, creates a sort of havoc for the acutely aware. Disconnected from the origin of things, a heightened sense of being creates disastrous consequences when the person in sickness cannot understand how everything he exists in came to be, the objects around him become a reflection of himself. The objects represent his inability to understand how he came to be. The inability for those around him to interpret this disconnect in the same way creates more problems for the observer, because for someone to not see the horror right in front of them is horrifying to him, it means that a collective subconscious dominates his community, and thus he feels alienated and alone. He secretly does not wish for anyone to see these objects as he does, because then all communication would cease to exist and solitude would infect everyone all at once. In a way, this sort of sickness unites only those with a similar sickness, such as the Persian woman who the main character meets, and this elitism is perhaps the only thing left that the sufferer can hold on to.
ON WITH SUFFERING
Finding that person to understand sickness with:
"everything about everybody is nothing but a diversion from death. It is surprising that I have been able to develop such thoughts especially to Moritz, that I have been able to speak to Moritz about such thoughts of death. So long as we have but a single person near us with whom we can ultimately talk about everything we can hold out, otherwise we cannot. I now had the Persian woman for such thoughts …."only this, only only only this will cure the sickness.
Supreme loneliness results from the inability to connect profoundly and intellectually with one other being. If a person does not understand this desire, then they are living with a lack of the skill of observation, and they are hallow because they distract themselves with false relationships, or wealth, or success. They work to establish themselves in a preordained system to feel of worthy through prominence in society, to fulfill the desire for attention, praise, and productivity, although this is not the core of satisfaction, and therefore will never last, except for the terribly ignorant who is in no way capable of any sort of intellectualism.
To interact with other facets of human life, nature, and ones surroundings, to find an unselfish purpose with which to project one's being, it is imperative that one eliminate analysis and obsessions with ones own sickness. "My existence seemed to be once again possible. Although I knew that this state of once again being able to exist would not last long, this did not then trouble me. That sudden light-headness, that sudden light- limbedness, that complete independence of all pains and of all conceivable humiliations on this earth quite simply made me happy and I was not compelled to reflect upon myself. "
BEING A REAL PERSON, BEING A PERSON WHO WANTS TO BE PERCEIVED AS REAL
I find it hard to stop obsessing over my own frustration. I NEED to figure out how to correctly present myself and my intellect to the world. I find excuses, and perhaps a fatal new obsession with creating only genuine personal connections with individuals on a one-on-one basis, rather than a triumph of fame, fortune and recognition. The ultimate test of ones ability to do this would be to create something that could change the world, and leave the name of the creator (himself) to be unknown. An anonymous contribution to the wellbeing of others would be the ultimate sacrifice and dismissal of selfishness.
Yet, it is quite tempting to establish oneself as a recognizable entity. It could be said that there are two types of people in the world. The ones who work mainly to achieve mainstream success and wish to be worshiped on a massive yet impersonal scale, and those who wish to be worshiped by only one person or a few people.
"I have always been fond of so-called philosophizing persons, not philosophers proper, whom I encountered in my life, and who had nothing to do with the real philosophers, whose schoolmaster philosophy and therefore philosophical twaddle had always repelled me. The present is no age for philosophers, all those so labeled nowadays are in fact labeled thus erroneously and totally misleadingly, they are nothing but common dullwitted anti-sensitive regurgitations of philosophy, who all make a livelihood from publishing hundreds and thousands of stale ideas at second or third or fourth hand, in university lecture rooms and in the book trade. …and I would describe myself as such a philosophizing person."
So much left unsaid, what I have written is of course, entirely personal, but what isn't for the youth of today? With the lack of responsibility inherent in today's youth, one can expect no more.
But, back to Bernhard's presentation of the woman in this book: he tried to live his life in solitude, finding companionship, and particularly the companionship of women to be a distraction and barrier impeding his work, and it could be said that he loathed women in general, found them tiresome, and he was continually paranoid that they would try to shape him, and that he would give into it, so his work would not be his, but instead, hers.
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