Well said. Write on!
I speak with cleverness.
It comes from the situation of speaking. I write from somewhere else. In
my writing cleverness sounds a false note. It indicates I am off track, I
have lost myself, I am suturing over the wound of ignorance and existence.
I was going to pick out my favorite passages (clever fellow that I am) but I
like em all -- Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I like what folks say on cybermind -- individually and as a whole. And
sometimes something you write Alan strikes me as especially pleasing. I'd
analyze it if I could. Pick it apart and find out just what about it so
delights me. But I can't. I think it is something in the way you explore
consciousness and in this case self consciouness. OK -- now take this bit
below. You write of you speaking and writing -- a sort of dual
consciousness. The difficulty of good faith or impossibility of
authenticity. I don't know quite what to make of it -- but it draws my
attention and at my age that is pleasure enuff. Especially with all the
pointless windblown clatter that makes up so much of my time -- and no
one's fault but my own.
You know, Elizabeth, everytime I use the word fault (and I'm always
finding fault with something or someone) I recall your comment about fault
not having an antonym. You must find me one! Everywhere I go I find
ault -- is there no hope for an antonym. And what is it about fault that
makes it unipolar? Why are some concepts unipolar and some bipolar?
My absurd joking deflects my graceless awkwardness. It goes
nowhere, says nothing of any consequence, and says it poorly. I think my
speaking and email will be the death of me. They draw attention way from
my writing. They undermine it. They say it's not clever enough, intelli-
gent enough. My writing does not respond. My writing sinks, and is writing
about that sinking. My writing props up my world it undermines and
describes. My talking ignores the whole problem. My talking is that litany
of deflections. What I do not understand, I turn into something else. What
I do understand becomes fodder; it never nourishes sufficiently. My talk-
ing implies talking to another limit; there's no etiquette in this. There
is no community in my writing; community cannot survive honesty. But my
writing is full of subterfuge, is about that subterfuge. My talking
carries itself everywhere in order to become pointless. My talking is
pointless. My writing is chiseled into a simulacrum construct of the real.
The real in my writing has everything at stake. It is at stake through and
within the writing. My speaking ignores the real; what is at stake is my
self and its alterity. My self is always in the midst-of, when I am speak-
ing. My self is absent or boundary, bordering, when I am writing. I write
beyond myself; I speak from myself. My speaking is monstrous, self-defeat-
ing. My writing is after the fact. If my speaking is central, my writing
is peripheral; if my writing is central, my speaking is peripheral. One
must read my writing, read my writing with the utmost care. One must never
listen when I am speaking.
Best wishes to all,
Jim Piat
