File spoon-archives/bataille.archive/bataille_1999/bataille.9903, message 92


Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 13:42:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Marsha Faizi <mfaizi-AT-rbnet.com>
Subject: Re: Yevgeny Zamyatin


Stacey,

This is a very long post. I had the day off from work. I certainly do not
expect you to reply. 

>
>Funny, I never think of myself as an academic.  But, I suppose some of the
>ways I move through the world might suggest this.  This is the first year
>of my life I have tried/been able to even contemplate studying without
>working full-time at some kind of unstimulating job. Yes, I do often
>wonder at times why I get the opportunity to do this.  Why should I be
>stimulated when so many other people do not either desire this choice or
>or unable to make this choice.  But guess what, I wasnt willing to stack
>cabbages for the rest of my life as some kind of statement.  I don't mean
>to imply that these two choice are exclusive.(ie. study or stack cabbages) 
>There are other reasons why I moved to Halifax from Victoria.      

Then, you know your good fortune and, because of your opportunity to stack
cabbages, you are appreciative of your opportunity to study. 

Most jobs, in the real world, do pretty much amount to some sort of
cabbage-stacking thing, even if you are not, literally, stacking cabbages.
You can make more money at pharmacy, for instance, or doctoring but, once
you get into the routine of it, it is not much more than stacking cabbages.
You count pills or you write prescriptions. You enjoy more status than one
who stacks cabbages but the essence of the job is not much different and, if
you have loftier notions such as discussing Lacan or Bataille or Zamyatin,
you will find that your collegues are not any more knowledgable about
literature than most cabbage stackers.

Therefore, you may find that, in order to have yourself surrounded by
persons with like interests to yours, you may have to enter the world of
real academia. That could be the best thing except that it cuts you off from
the world at large and, once the gloss wears off a bit, it may get to be
like stacking cabbages somewhat. Maybe, not. 

I think that, when you come right down to the crux of the situation, all
jobs are about cabbage stacking. You have to make your own way if you want
more than that. 


>I have to make compromises all the time and I become more aware of my
>motivations. 

I hope that you don't have to make many. It is all right as long as you
don't make mental compromises or compromises that can destroy you.

>I am trying to trust in this process.  In the past there have
>been varying degrees of compromise; I almost got married once but you are
>right I didnt want to wear cocktail dresses and be a hostess/cypher
>person.  I wanted a room of my own (actually still want).   

I want that, too. Children really have a way of taking everything completely
over. By the time that they are finished with you, you are fortunate if you
can manage to hold onto a single article that is your own, let alone a room.
Very destructive little things, kids. Life with children is like having your
home infested by large but rather cute rodents. 

Some children are more tame than others. They sit around and color and read
and play with little toys. I was blessed with these two creatures who never
did any of that one single day of their lives and they never took naps. Had
I realized how it would be, I would never have bought furniture. I would
have padded the floors and the walls and installed gym equipment. Climbers
from birth. My first winter alone with them, my arms were sore from pulling
them down from the curtains and from the top of the refrigerator and the
stove and the cabinets. I had posters on their bedroom walls in very nice
little frames but they destroyed them so that they could use the frames for
sword fighting. I used to wish that I could have some blow-darts filled with
chloral hydrate. 

And kids attract other kids. For that reason, I did have an electronic
megaphone for awhile. I got tired of screaming and the electronic voice
commanded a lot more respect. There would be about fifteen kids in the yard
so, instead of screaming, I could turn on the megaphone and intone, "You,
near the sliding board, no hitting or hair pulling." or "Jacob Black. Down,
please, from the top of the swingset before you break your neck."

Crowd control. It worked.  

>Or maybe that
>is what you are saying. 

That is what I am saying. Misery loves company. That is why people with kids
keep after other people to have kids. I am not that selfish or mean. I never
miss an opportunity to warn people. Maybe, you don't require such warning.
Maybe, you are smart but I warn you anyway. It is very, very easy to think,
"Well, my kids would never be like that." or "I would use very firm
discipline." or "My life won't be like that because I will have this nice
husband who will take care of everything else so that I can bake cookies and
teach Junior to play the cello."

Rots uv ruck.

>But again why do I get to make this choice... what
>kind of responsibilities and obligations does this put me under (any?)

None. You should make of your life something that is as fulfilling and
pleasurable as you can possibly make it.

>Whatever you say Faizi, you must have some kind of sense of community.

Of course, I do. I live in a very small, tight community where people wear
several hats. Your patient may be the very one who saves your life here. The
firechief is your kids' coach. Your son is friends with the son of the man
who comes to fix your air conditioner and he is also your patient and you
know all about his testosterone shots and whatnot. The mayor lives down the
street from you and he does the town mowing in the summer and bakes muffins
which he puts in a basket and delivers throughout the town.

Then, under the surface, there are all these people having extra-marital
affairs and nearly everyone is kin to everyone else. That's community.


>I actually learned a lot from it.  So I guess I lied when I said  I dont 
>learn. But you know that sounds like some kind of rhetoric to me.
>Again, thinking seems like an empty word when I use it. Perhaps you can
>tell me what you mean by it?  

Thinking is introspective thought that leads one to reason. 

>So then you are saying that men as well as women possess feminine
>traits? 

Yes, they do. Some men are quite feminine.

>Repetition to some extent interests me.  I think I may have been
>wrong in assuming that it interests you too, even though you seem to have
>the same conversations sometimes.  

I do. I have a one-track mind.

>Why dont you tell me what interests you
>then? 

I am interested in things that are below the surface of things--motives,
drives, intentions. I am interested in color and form. I am interested in
light and darkness.

>Do you think you can risk all the time without being disappointed?

No. Not unless you do not expect anything.

>So you risk nothing from engaging with other people? In this way you are
>autonomous?  

I am autonomous because I have been fortunate enough to see the benefit of
such a state of emotional autonomy. 

>But what changes you then? Or do you not change?  Change
>might be some kind of compromising or weighing or choosing. 

I have had a particular year of upheaval and change. Great change. Enormous
change. More change than I could have wanted but, now that it has been
forced, I can see the value of it. I learned quite a bit in the past year. 

>I would
>have to say that I wouldnt give up financial or spatial autonomy at this
>point.  In my experience I would rather be poor and have my own bed.     
>Do you think that if you compromise a little it is actually
>compromising everything. I think of it as more of a continuum.

If you are speaking of a relationship, yes, I say that, if you compromise a
little, it is compromising everything. You said that you think of it as more
of a continuum. I used to think that, too, until the past year. 

> Yes, they fulfilled their chosen purposes. It was their clear intention to
> Therefore, it would be carelessness on my part if I die by my own
>> failure to anticipate something. 
>
>I am still thinking about intentionality.  I dont think I can anticipate
>that many variables without becoming a hermit.  I am still surprised
>sometimes and perhaps this too suggests my inability to anticipate/read
>people and situations.  But I dont think that this is so much an inability
>as so much swirling.   

I am not all that great at reading people either. I tend to be overly
optimistic. However, through experience, I am no longer disappointed. 

What do you mean by "swirling?"

>So in your opinion, how would one begin to think?
>Or perhaps I should frame that more personally. How did you begin to
>*think*?  Or perhaps you think this question is me just gathering more
>examples?

I have always thought. I was just that kind of person from the beginning. My
mistake in life was my attempt to "fit in." There were many times, as a kid,
when I was just completely alone. I liked that fine, in many ways. I stayed
completely to myself and I read and I stayed in my room to think and I wrote
or painted or drew. I was not attractive. I was a nerd and a weirdo. 

The trouble started when I became more attractive. Plus, the fact that I
mistakenly reasoned that, since I did not know anyone like myself, I should
learn to compromise and to fit; to make myself socially acceptable and as
much like everyone else as possible. So, more or less, I attempted that. I
had the two marriages and the kids. Even after my second husband died, I do
not think that I was aware enough of myself to believe that I did not need a
relationship to survive. I stayed alone for three years with the kids after
his death but, finally, entered into the same old delusions. I had a
relationship with a man that was, at least, distant and not based on getting
married and blah, blah, blah. But it was still quite a compromising
relationship. I spent two years writing his book for him.

This is all jumbled and I can tell you in bits or pieces as things occur to me.

When I was in art school, I think that I did meet a young man who was more
like me but, at that time, I was not ready to see myself that way. He was
one very gorgeous human being. Black hair and pale skin. He used to come to
my apartment and we would read Rimbaud together. I never did like Rimbuad
all that much and I figured that was something amiss with me. Probably was.
I was real, real stupid when I was twenty two years old. So, I had these
other boyfriends who were painters. John was not an art student. He had gone
to school to be a priest and gotten out of it. He played piano and he worked
at a factory as a switchboard operator. I don't think that he was ever aware
that women found him to be extremely attractive because of his physical
beauty. He was still doing the battle against going back to the seminary. He
seemed priestly, I reckon. He was reclusive. Didn't go to parties and stuff.
Never went out with women much. He lived next door to me and stayed in his
apartment writing most of the time. But, once in awhile, he came over and we
read or he read and I sketched. Once, he asked me if I could write something
for him from a series of photographs that he had and I did that for him.
Another time, he said that he had had a dream in which he was playing the
piano and someone was going to put the top down on the keyboard to smash his
fingers but I stopped the person from doing it.

Anyway, the point of all this is that, in hindsight, I can see that John was
much more like me than anyone else I encountered. But I was so busy being
Ms. Artist and Ms. Artist's Girlfriend that I could not see it. It is just
as well because I do not think that I was smart enough to have learned
anything from him at the time. I was too busy trying to force myself into
fitting into the social things. I liked John, certainly, but I was too full
of shit to really be his friend and I greatly regret that. I think that part
of the reason, too, was that I knew that he was this dazzlingly handsome
person. Breathtakingly beautiful. I remember a female friend remarking, "You
are the only girl John ever speaks to. He is very shy." and I thought that
that was nothing. I was too stupidly blind to see the worth and I do not
mean worth in terms of forming a sexual relationship with him but the true
worth of what a friendship between two very intropsective people could mean
and not as a marriage or a thing forced into some kind of permanence but,
really, something that could have been far more special than that.

So, I went off with my painting boyfriend and eventually married him. Doing
so was a complete denial of myself, Stacey. I was trying to hide.

I have often wondered whatever became of John. I have wondered if he finally
gave into his training to enter the priesthood. That training began from his
birth. His parents decided that he would be a priest and they groomed him
for this from the time that he was born. From the time that he was a small
boy, he knew that he had to grow up to become a priest. He rebelled against
it, finally, but I have always wondered if, in the end, all that grooming
for it just got him. 

Not that it matters. I had to learn what I had to learn and I am not saying
that I wish that I had married him. God, no. I have no wish to screw up
anyone's life. The point is that, much later, I learned from our friendship
what I wish that I could have learned then--that I am more interested in
interiors than exteriors and that, though there are fewer people like this
in the world, it is a fine thing to be that way.   

How does one begin to think? 

One begins to think when one no longer wishes to hide.

You may be smart enough to know this already, Stacey. But I wasn't when I
was your age. I was real dumb.

> I have no connection with either the illusion of belief
>or the illusion of non-belief.
>
>I understand this position, but I am unable to imagine it.

I think that it is a matter of questioning everything. 


>> In short, I don't give a shit.
>
>But you enjoy some things right?  

Yes, I enjoy what I can enjoy. I enjoy writing, even if it is just to a list.

>You said that you would rather not die?
>What does it mean to have a preference to you? Are they that
>inconsequential?  

I do prefer to live. If I don't write, I am not living.


>> What, exactly, is a metaphor and why is it valuable to explore one? 
>
>Alot of the time I think that everything is metaphor.  It is a direct
>comparison of one "thing" or "concept" to another and for me it is the
>connotations and resonances which occur within the juxtaposition.  How do
>two things become related to each other in this way?  What does this mean?
>Make up a story.

I am not fond of making up stories. I become bored, like when I have to sit
through a movie. I do not mean to imply that I think that there is something
wrong with making up stories. A lot of people love to do that and they write
some very nice fiction. But I get bored if I attempt it.

>> Stacey, it does not matter to me, in the least, who coined the term "hopeful
>> monster." I am more interested in how such abstract thought applies to your
>> or to anyone's perception of the world. 
>
>This is what you mean by academic practice?  I guess for me it is a form
>of respect...a kind of recognition of influence.  See how well I have been
>trained?  I understand your point, however.  A way of not pretending
>authenticity.  I know that I am symptomatic.

It is a fine thing to read. I have been influenced by what I have read, too.
But I have come to the point that I no longer require influence. I think
that there comes a time when you either cut the cord or you decide that you
will continue to read and writing will become a minimal exercise.

>> It is a wonderful thing to be well read and to possess a fine memory. I do
>> not mean, at all, to denigrate or to belittle that but what do you do
>> otherwise? Anything? Can you think?
>
>I am not well read and my memory is actually quite poor.  I have other
>interests.  I am working on a short film; I run; I volunteer at a
>foodbank.  Yes, I do have some qualms about my highly text based
>existance.  Not enought to stop reading though.  

Then, you should not stop reading. It is not that I have completely stopped.
If I had a lot of time, I would read. I cannot imagine what I would read but
I would read. I am not interested in fiction and, to me, if it is a matter
of Nietzsche or Kirkegaard whose writing I admire, things become redundant.

>> I can see no value in such fabled tension. I think that it is destructive.
>> Additionally, I have doubt that such tension exists. I think that it is an
>> intellectual hoax perpetuated for the purpose of making those who believe it
>> feel good about themselves. Such a notion of tension can serve to make some
>> people believe and actually enact such illusion of individuality while they
>> continue to participate in the behavior of "the herd."
>
>I am not understanding this.  I thought you just said that mutants exist
>or that we are all potentially mutants 

I could not have said that we are all potentially mutant. 

>and now you are saying they are not
>individual?  

No, I could not have said that either.

>What do you mean by individual?  

A human being capable of thinking for himself.

>So you think there is no
>*difference*?  What kind of distinction are you implying here.

I am implying that, though there are human beings who are, truly
individuals, there are also others whom, though they may appear to be
individual by their acts are not much different from those whom they claim
to be reacting against. This is how today's revolutionary becomes tomorrow's
dictator or today's radical politician becomes tomorrow's stock market tycoon.

That is the nature of the societal "tension" that you cited above and that I
say is a fallacy because it does not support the individual human being but
does support group cohesiveness and will, ultimately, support those who
*seem* to be heretics as long as such heresy can be contained.

>> >I think some of Bataille's notions of economy fit into this contortion 
>> >within his distinction between controlled expenditure and
>> >eclipsing expenditure.  Both ofcourse are "natural" to the system but take
>> >shape within different qualitative fields.  Both significant yes, but
>> >valued differently.   
>
>
>> How can what is contorted also be distinctive? What is a qualitative field? 
>> How could any of what you have stated above have anything at all to do with
>> reality beyond mental construct and failsafe? 
>>
>
>But you said that you were interested in abstract thought?  

Certainly, I am. Therefore, I cannot see how what can be contorted can be
distinctive.

>What do you
>mean by reality, mental construct, fail-safe?  

Reality is life as it is with no pretense otherwise.

Mental construct is what we use to build delusion that life is other than it is.

Failsafe is the falling back onto what we have been taught will protect us
from reality.

>By pain, I only meant extinction.  yes, heaven and utopia both no place at
>all.  But often a useful way of imagining what you value or dont value.  I
>can already feel your response.  What do you value?

Life is valuable to me and life is reason and the thought to come to reason.
Perfectly. 


>> >Most of the time, I would
>> >have to say, I am a fatalist.  At what point do we begin to say that what
>> >someone else desires is okay?  Can it be as simple as "I want what I
>> >want."     

>> It can be that simple. But it does not, logically, follow that you will get
>> what you want or that anyone will get what he wants. How could anyone's
>> desire not be okay? Desire is nothing.
> 
>I know that it doesnt logically follow.  I will think about this.
>
>I am not trying to sway you.  Do you think I would be that presumptuous?
>But perhaps sharing and exceeding do not exist in your world?

I do not call it sharing, however. I call it communication.

>Do you really, honestly believe in a division between body and mind?
>Why? Why priviledge one over the other?  Why is duration so important?

I don't believe in either the separation of the body and mind or in the
concept of body and mind being the same. It's a toss up and it does not
matter to me how it works out. I do tend to see things as more mental; that
the mind can consume the body. That is my natural way of sensing.

>> >Genius does not only not exist, but it can
>> >never eliminate the barriers of time.  
>> 
>> Then, how can you define a heretic, so called, who can span one hundred
>> fifty years within fifty years or ten or fifteen or twenty or three? Your
>> Zamyatin speaks of such a man and praises him, even if rather off-handedly.
>
>Time in this instance is being used as a metaphor to suggest a
>*noticeable* difference.

But, to me, it cannot be a metaphor. If the difference is noticable, then, I
cannot see how it can be fiction any more than this computer upon which I am
typing is fiction. If both are fiction, then, there is no discernable
difference. Therefore, I do say that time can eliminated.

>> >> What is the point of citing timelessness and genius in books if we do not
>> >> choose to learn by example?

>I dont think anything is timeless. Genius is some kind of romantic concept
>used validate difference.

I do not think that genius is a romantic concept. Not at all. It is
realization. 


>> well. Why, indeed, would you choose to go beyond that? The virtue of sex is
>> an easy thing. You oil the machine and it can last several years. 
>
>*laugh*

But it is true, Stacey. A woman, especially, has this opportunity to use sex
for gain. She may gain a warm home by such use and she can gain security.   

>> >You are
>> >not an example to me but engaging and moving; you are a constant
>> >beginning.   
>> 
>> If I am--and I truly doubt that I am such a thing--a constant beginning,
>> then, what is the merit of your desire in the form of what you call body
>> memories? I can guarantee that you can have no body memory of me because I
>> am not an object of your desire. There is no way that I can serve you. I
>> cannot be your subject. 
>
>Please, can we move past the conventional platitudes of subject and
>object. 

Is that possible?

>That isnt it at all. Body memory has very little to do with other
>people.  Do you ever wear a scarf and then take it off and still *feel*
>that it is there?  Don't you have body memories when you dream?  The body
>isn't just about sex.   

It is that I do not consider such things to be important. I reckon they are
phenomena that occur but I attach no meaning to them. I almost never dream. 

>> If this is so, then, how could you wish to communicate on such uninteresting
>> terms? I could not. What could be, then, the point of citing quotations from
>> Zamyatin if one is satisfied with conventional platitudes? Does one merely
>> quote for the sake of quoting or for the sake of impressing others or does
>> one seek knowledge for a deeper purpose?
>
>Yes, precisely that is where you have to begin though, with convention
>if you are going to communicate anything.   

If you mean the convention of language, then, this is so. However, my desire
when communicating with written language is the removal of barriers. If it
is a matter of description, then, I am interested in the most intense
adjectives that I can possibly use for the given subject so that, when one
reads that passage, the visualization becomes startling real, so that the
words become all but meaningless. In order to achieve this effect, one does
defy convention. 

The vision is the word and the word is the vision. 

>> >The impossibility of freedom, or being neither quite dead nor quite alive,
>> >is bound to be caught up in relationship. Thus, what is necessary for an
>> >ongoing partnered expression, or any coherent solidary meaning, is some
>> >corrigible rules for definition.
>> 
>> Then, if one is caught up in relationship, freedom is an impossibility. 

>Yes, I said freedom in the way you mean it is impossible.

But I do not think that it is an impossibility. Not at all.


>I don't like rules, Stacey, and I do not abide them well. For the sake of my
>> own survival, I must conform to some societal rules but I will never bend to
>> the rules of human relationship. To me, such ideations spell conformity and
>> compromise. I don't do that. I will not participate in an ongoing partnered
>> expression. That's bullshit.
>
>So you are part of no herd. I get it.  But I dont think I want to settle
>here either.   

Then, you should not, of course. You should enjoy everything until it is no
longer enjoyable.

 
>> >> It is entirely possible that I have been playing with dynamite too long.
>> >> One's otic accuity becomes damaged, no doubt, by the noise of detonation. 
>> >
>> >Yes, you are a player too.
>> 
>> I am alive. I do not play in the way that you suppose.
>
>Yes, and I am dead-alive.

Then, I pity your dead-life.

>> >> What is the value of change to you, Stacey? What is freedom of thought,
>> >> precisely? 
>> >
>> >Change is almost everything.  It is the constant renegotiation of my final
>> >vocabulary, my desires and my bodies. There is no freedom of thought
>> >within this context.  Free from what? I would not be free from anything.
>> >What is a more interesting question to me is at which moments do
>> >we recognise a change as change?
>> 
>> Then, what is it that is preventing you from change? How are you so willing
>> to use your body memories and desire as a cycle of repetition? 
>
>Isnt change only noticeable when other elements remain the same?

Of course, but I was asking how you or anyone could be content to repeat
forever cyclically, with change only occurring superficially? How do you
break from what holds you? 

>> >I find you fascinating Faizi because you use words like Love and Hope and
>> >Woman which you claim to hold no value in reality and yet they have great
>> >significance (because you choose them).
>> 
>> Yes, of course, you find me fascinating because you are forced to find me
>> fascinating. 
>
>*fascinating* What do you mean by force?  Are saying you have free-will?

Yes, *fascinating.* How could you find me other than *fascinating?*

Free will is a very limited thing.

>> What is love but hope? What is woman but the embodiment of love and hope?
>
>I already asked you what you meant by hope earlier and you didnt answer
>me.  

Hope is something to which one clings when one is very desperate. Since I am
not desperate, I have no hope at all nor any need for it.

>I mean it only as a gage for measuring where I am at.  But perhaps
>you would say this is impossible.  Can I as a *quintessential* woman both
>embody love and hope and have it at the same time?  

I am certain that you can. I have no doubt at all that you can do that.

>So you actually dont
>think anything can exceed your expectations? Because you have none.

That is right. I have none. If I have none, then, nothing can exceed what I
do not have.

>Because you can anticipate everything or atleast have confidence that you
>will meet it with force?   

I have had a lot of practice in anticipation.

>> With what do you propose to differentiate yourself? Anything? 
>
>My imagination and my will to not be silent.    

My wish for you, then, is that both your imagination and your will to not
remain silent will serve you well.

Faizi

>stacey 
>
>
>


   

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