#157

These Derrida essays are fucking savory. They're the sort of thing I would have unhinged my jaw and swallowed in a single sitting when I was younger, comprehending but not fully understanding, before grabbing the next thing off the shelf. Devouring and devouring, never sleeping. I chew a little more now. Once I was a python that had eaten an elephant. Don't know what I am now, but the way I am receiving these essays make me feel like I might have digested something.

This makes me outrageously suspicious of myself. It is essential to never, never relax into feeling like you have anything figured out.

*

On a related note, I wished to clarify that my last statement in yesterday's post was not meant to be a a condemnation of existence. Not a moaning or a groaning. Simply a noting.

My feelings about the vortex are complicated, but overall, I would rather be here than not. Ecstasy > Agony, even at my most agonized and bereft. My feelings about the center are that it is a gift. The essays have been validating these feelings with every word and also the title of the collection*, which is why I picked it up in the first place. 

--JL

*The Gift of Death, Jacques Derrida (Secrets of European Responsibility; Beyond:Giving for the Taking, Teaching and Learning to Give, Death; Whom to Give to (Knowing Not to Know); Tout autre est tout autre)