Poem of the day

Herbert Hindringer

Du sagst:
Es liegt am
schlechten Wetter oder
sogar drunter
die falsche
Himmelsrichtung
die macht dich
kalt
dies ist der
Weltnicht-
Brauchertag

If only I'd known...

...where to get that dummy from, I might have been able to save all the relationships I've had.

Do you read me?

Kaum etwas ist mir so zuwider wie der Terror der Verständlichkeit.

- Herbert Achternbusch

Plus d'un, comme moi sans doute, écrivent pour n'avoir plus de visage. Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même: c'est une morale d'état-civil; elle régit nos papiers. Qu'on nous laisse libres quand il s'agit d'écrire.

- Michel Foucault

I've been thinking a lot recently - and because of particular (you might also say: personal) circumstances - about communcation, or rather: about the failure of communication, more commonly known as: misunderstandings. Jacques Derrida's point, if I remember correctly, was: Dreadful as it might be, misunderstanding is not, as it were, an exception or mishap of communication, quite to the contrary, miscommunication is the rule. In the spirit of Paul Watzlawik one could say: You cannot not miscommunicate.

Just as one can read a text in innumerable different ways, never coming to a closure, to a definite, "true" meaning, there are innumerable different ways to understand an oral utterance. Usually, we assume that because oral communication is more determined in terms of context (deixis of the present situation being bound by particular material circumstances, presence of all the people participating in the communication, etc.), we actually understand what the other person is saying (and in case we don't, we can always ask: what do you mean?). In most cases we get away with that assumption quite well. That is, I believe, because we sort of learned the game of convention; because we don't start to question the meaning of every other banal, quotidian utterance, like for example "I'm going home" (If you look at toodlers' sometimes highly annoying and potentially endless chains of "why"-questions, you can see where trying to understand an utterance without the conventionality of communication can lead to. The "why"-question-game is of course, and this adds to the delight of children playing it, unanswerable, that is: never ending).

I think those conventions of communication (which, let's face it, make our life a whole lot easier) yield from us the (quite uncanny) fact that we don't really know another person; others are the Other. And because of that there is no way we can ever fully understand all the nuances of the meaning that a simple phrase like "I'm going home" has for a particular person at a particular time and place in a particular circumstance (let alone understand a person). What's more, even the person uttering the sentence doesn't grasp all its meanings: not only because an "author" has no control or right over the interpretation of his/her own words, but, even worse, because no one really ever knows himself/herself, and thus can never know all the possible meanings of what s/he was saying (just remember the Freudian slip, for instance; it's the unconscious talking us).

So why bother with this crap at all? Okay, we communicate without really understanding each other; why don't we just accept it and get on with our lives? Why try to make someone understand what you mean, why try to understand someone? Even more: Why worry about being understandable, about making yourself clear; why put so much effort in trying to put things the right way? (That's the big puzzle, for me.)

In the end, I have come up with two answers. First of all, it's a question of ethics or morality: We need to pretend we understand each other (and we need to pretend that we ourselves know what we mean when we talk), because you have to assume responsability for what you say. Language, then, is not simply this fluffy, conveniently transparent medium, but your words are part of you (and you do not merely express your identity with words), you have to take full responsability for them. Which, when you think of it, is quite an imposition; but even though, you probably won't get away by citing Derrida when you insult a police officer.

Secondly, we want to reach out to the Other, and we want to be touched by the Other, and that's because - pardon me if I'm being too banal or one-minded here - language, as Lacan would have it, tries to compensate for a lack: the corporeal feeling of symbiosis we lost and can never return to. And of course, where there is symbiosis, there is no misunderstanding, because there is no need for communication.

Oh and by the way

Public transport sucks: without being claustrophobic or generally misanthropist, I can imagine a lot better places to be than five metres underground, lumped together with a crowd of smelly, loud, annoying human beings (come to think of it: maybe the best argument against bearing children).
But anyway, I'm tryin' to make a difference for future generations... hope they'll appreciate it.

You were fit oh! but don't you just know it

Remember the days when you'd go out all weekend, gettin' hardly any sleep or any halfway 'healthy' drink or food, for that matter, and then you'd turn up in school on Mondays totally "rise and shine" to gossip about the latest excess?

Yeah, me neither...

I don't know about you, but my puberty sucked. I recently found my teenager-diary again, and, embarrassing as such a thing always is, it also struck me how unhappy I must have been. I mean, of course it's all about what now seem to me "baby"-problems, and of course every teenager sort of engulfs a certain mal de vivre (something to do with hormones, maybe).

I was overly irritable, overly self-conscious (well, I still am, though I like to think in a different, more grown-up way), angry at everyone for no particular reason, and I always felt that others had way more liberties than I had and were way better dressed than I was (in short: I was a pain in the ass). Plus: I grew up in the countryside; the latest bus would leave town at 9.30 pm (and that was the one I had to take since my mom was super strict), and of course the whole point was hangin' around in town as much and as long as possible. We would either spend all afternoon in cafés and then try to be home in a halfway decent state, or I would invent some ridiculous lie so I could sleep over at a friend's place who had a 'later' curfew (later meaning something like 11pm). It sucked to be a teenager, it sucked to be a teenager in Salzburg, it sucked to be my mother's teenage daughter, it sucked to be me.

But please, let's by all means glorify youth. What else is there to do.

Trotzdem: Jeden Tag mit vollem Einsatz spielen, als ob ob ob ist.

Vorbei, hast du gesagt, und ich habe dir zugehört, natürlich; natürlich, verstehe ich, natürlich. Geträumt, hätten wir, hast du gesagt, uns etwas herbeigesehnt; natürlich. Aber warum, frage ich mich, warum dieses Bedürfnis, nicht einfach nur Adieu zu sagen, sondern gleichzeitig auch zu urteilen darüber, was war; es abzustempeln: eine Art falsches Bewusstsein (wenn auch der Ausdruck nicht ganz stimmt, so passt er doch); kindliches Träumen, das wir doch nun endlich überwunden haben (sollten), jetzt, wo wir wieder in der Welt der Erwachsenen angekommen sind; du in deiner, und ich in meiner. Aus der Traum, es hat sich ausgeträumt. Vernünftig sein, wir wolln doch vernünftig sein, ja? Sei vernünftig, siehst du nicht? So und so. Natürlich; natürlich, ich verstehe.

Dir selbst treu bleiben müsstest du, hast du gesagt, und ich habe dir zugehört, natürlich; natürlich, verstehe ich, natürlich. Sich selbst treu bleiben, ja doch, und gleichzeitig denke ich: man kann sich selbst treu bleiben, so sehr und so lange, bis man sich schließlich selbst nicht mehr kennt, sich nicht mehr wieder erkennt, und, schlimmer noch, bis man sich vielleicht selbst nicht mehr mag. Ich habe Menschen gesehen, denke ich, die sich selbst treu geblieben sind, so sehr, dass die letzte Konsequenz dieser Selbsttreue, dieses Einschwörens auf sich selbst, die eigene Auslöschung war. Das ist nur konsequent, nicht wahr; wir wollen uns doch treu bleiben, wolln wir doch, ja wolln wir, natürlich. Natürlich, ich verstehe.

Warum sich also dagegen sträuben, gegen diese Worte, gegen dieses Ende? Dein gutes Recht ist es, natürlich. Natürlich: es ist dein gutes Recht. Und doch denke ich: was ist denn um Himmels Willen nur falsch daran, zu träumen, was falsch daran, sich etwas herbeizusehen? Wir kannten uns kaum; was hätten wir anderes tun sollen, als träumen? Uns selbst träumen, jeder für sich, und den anderen; und uns beide zusammen. Wir sahen uns kaum; was hätten wir anderes tun sollen, als uns sehnen? Nach dem anderen (den wir träumten), nach einer Zukunft, die wir ebenfalls träumten und die natürlich - natürlich! hörst du, natürlich! - (noch) nicht da war, (noch) nicht wirklich war, sondern ein Traum, eine Hoffnung, vermessen vielleicht, ja. Aber wann, sag es mir doch, wann 'ist' die Zukunft denn schon jemals wirklich? Und die Gegenwart? Und die Vergangenheit?

Und überhaupt: Was ist das schon, frage ich mich (weil ich dich nicht mehr fragen kann), was ist denn das schon, 'die Wirklichkeit', derentwillen ich jetzt nicht mehr träumen, mich nicht mehr sehnen soll? Wie eine leere Hülse (eine Worthülse, so sagt man doch) kommt es mir vor, dieses Wort da: Wirklichkeit; wie ein Haar im Mund zu einem sperrigen, unbequemen Balken geworden. Wer sind wir schon wirklich, jeder für sich (denn zusammen, so sagst du, waren wir doch nicht wirklich; nur träumend)? Als ob es nicht so wäre, dass ein Teil dieses geheimnisvollen Etwas, dem wir doch, bitte schön, treu zu bleiben haben, als ob dieses Selbst nicht zum überwiegenden Teil ein Traum wäre, eine Illusion, ein Ideal, ein Selbstbild. Und dem soll ich treu bleiben, im Namen eines vermeintlichen Realitätsprinzips? Warum? Warum soll ich mich nicht verlieren, verlieren im Träumen als eine andere in der Beziehung zu einem anderen, um mich dadurch, vielleicht, wiederzufinden? Was ist falsch daran, an einer anderen Person wachsen zu wollen; zum andern hin (ihn nur träumend erahnend, und dennoch: zum andern hin); auch auf die Gefahr hin, nicht zu wissen, wer man schließlich sein wird, und wer diese andere Person da 'wirklich' ist?

Nun gut. Egal. Vorbei, sagst du; ich nicke und gehe, später dann, taumelnd durch die winterlich kalte Stadt. Ja, habe ich genickt, obwohl ich eigentlich gar nichts verstanden habe; deine Worte ein weißes Rauschen an meinen glühend-roten Ohren. Tatsächlich aber hast du mich nicht gefragt, ob ich verstehe (nicht ein einziges Mal; nicht einmal 'Ich hoffe, du verstehst', hast du gesagt; nur Bescheid wissen sollte ich. Danke, ich weiß Bescheid; jetzt weiß ich Bescheid; darüber, wie es um dich steht. Und dass du eine Entscheidung getroffen hast; für uns beide, wie sich herausstellt). Also gut, ja. Verstehn tu ich es nicht, aber akzeptieren, nun, akzeptieren muss ich es wohl.

Quote of the day

"You were that last Sunday - you are this today. Mr Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We wanted to help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did not have you here out of charity - which bores us - but because we hoped there would be a connection between last Sunday and other days. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? They have never entered into mine, but into yours, we thought - haven't we all to struggle against life's daily grayness, against pettiness, against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by remembering my friends; others I have know by remembering some place - some beloved place or tree - we thought you one of these."

E.M. Forster Howards End

Jenseits des Lustprinzips

The first mistake was to believe in romance. You know, that Hollywood-fairytale-kinda thing: violins a-playin', diffuser scrim, pastell colours, a tad of incredible coincidence bringing together two actors that were never meant to cruise in the same orbit.

The second mistake was to believe that romance actually happens in real life.

The third mistake was to believe that romance actually happens to you.

The last, and obviously biggest mistake was to believe that people behave the way you'd like them to behave and, more particularly, to believe people are the way you'd like them to be.

Conclusion: For heaven's sake woman, you're 28 years old. Fucking grow up and get over Cinderella already.

PS: Freud knew but oh too well why he chose a myth to explain the formation of our psyche.

Soundtrack:
Peter, Paul & Mary - Don't think twice, it's allright (in what seems to be the Asian Karaoke version)

Don't call me Seneca, after all

Okay, I've really tried this whole stoicism business; no, seriously, I have. But I just can't make it work. That might be because I lack the most basic ingredients, like patience for example. I can't even stand having to wait a minute for the loo. Hold on, that probably has got nothing to do with patience, but with self-control. Whatever.

Also, I'm back from the serotonin-loaded heights of my own fluffy-disneyworld happiness. Maybe it's like a certain someone (can't remember who; all these quotes in my head with no author to attribute them to): Luck compensates its shortness with intensity.

To sum things up, dear Barack Obama, sorry to have to say this but:

No, I can't!

Quote of the day

Diese Gegend hat mich kaputt gemacht. Und ich bleibe, bis man ihr das anmerkt.

Herbert Achternbusch

Eight lesson of academic logic

I don't know what's worse: having literally no private (that is: love) life at all, or having a complicated private (as in: love) life.

Conclusion 1: I wish I was a working robot today, 'cos then I'd be able to zoom out all my non-work-related emotions and thoughts.

Conclusion 2: Having an uncomplicated private (read: love) life is next to impossible. It's like Heisenberg's uncertainity principle.

Fab's words of psychoanalytical wisdom

Dear Siggi,

having a super-ego sucks big time, particularly if it is as well-developed as mine.

Yours neurotically.

Fairy tale

We all know, of course, that around midnight, Supergirl transforms back into a pumpkin: Waking up in the morning with a terrible hangover, she wonders whether she did really turn that frog into a prince or the other way around, where the hell she left her slipper, and while she gorges down 21 litres of water and 44 aspirins, she swears that she'll never drink or smoke ever again in her entire life.