Non-fiction / Writer without a Cause (part 1)

I do not believe it is necessary to answer the question “Why do I write?” in order to produce great works of literature anymore than answering “Why do I live?” is necessary to lead a great life. Not only is not an answer necessary for great literature to be produced, but any answer would do. Vanity, Money, Fame, Boredom, Caprice, World Peace – you name it. It doesn’t matter. Behind the greatest works of literature may lie the most banal reasons imaginable. This is because it is not the purpose of an activity that determines how well it is carried out. That the purpose of a screwdriver is to screw things up, does not determine how good the screwing will be.

Since the purpose of writing does not necessarily determine its value, neither does it add to its production. This book itself serves as proof, since it started without a cause, and continues without it. So, to all vain, money/fame-seekers, bored to death writers out there, I salute you, and let great literature begin!

The writer without a cause enjoys a freedom unavailable to writers with one, as the man who lives life without a specific purpose, can adopt any purpose that comes his way. He is not constrained by what he writes, but by how he writes. The writer without a cause is a traveller who occupies himself with whatever he encounters in his journeys till he reaches his end – an end we all share – which is not a destination. Few men make death their destination even though we all manage to get there. With no destination there is no deviation; no course is considered a discourse.

Why should I arrange my thoughts?
Do painters pair the yellow with the yellow, the blue with the blue?
Do musicians play the D’s together?
Why do they then expect us thinkers to write about one thing at a time, in one place? As if anything healthy ever grew in a monoculture.
My writings are a jungle, vibrant, full of life; insects as well as leopards, things hidden in dense vegetation and the vegetation itself…
They want you to be one thing…an ant or an ant-eater…but you can be a jungle in an ecstatic harmony that no ant or ant-eater can ever understand or feel.

4
Όταν εισαι νεος ψαχνεσαι. Όταν γερασεις χανεσαι τελειως.[1]

It is no use trying to find good subjects to write about. For they will not make you a great writer. They may even be detrimental to your reputation, attracting criticisms like: “The subject was great, but the writer did a bad job at presenting it.”

Many people say “I don’t have enough time to be a good writer…” or “it takes a long time…” the reason being, that men do not undertake activities just for the activity itself, but also because of their value within that activity. If I just started writing there is a very big chance I won’t be good at it in the beginning let alone the chance that I won’t be good enough in the end…The writer without a cause is free from such scruples – his readers aren’t. Which obliges him to find a publisher without a cause – a very rare species.

We prefer to say we don’t play the violin to saying that we don’t play it well. We give up a preference for an activity as easily as we continue in one which we have talent but which we prefer less or not at all.

You know the advice they give to authors, that they should not think if they want to start writing? – Its true. Once you think, you realize there’s no point in writing anything. What conclusion can we draw from this? That writers don’t think…Do thinkers who write therefore contradict themselves?

An analysis of the word “mis-anth-rope” yields its real meaning. The misanth-rope is in fact “the rope over the abyss between beast and overman” (Nietzsche). He stands in the middle of this rope (mis-)[2] and does not know whether to return to the beasts, head to the overman or fall into the abyss. Yet this tension is the fertile soil from which his thoughts and writings emerge as an exotic flower (-anth-)[3]. In short: the misanthrope is that flower on the middle of the rope which connects our past and our future over nothingness.

One becomes aware of himself to the extent that he can correctly interpret the motivations behind his actions. Such an individual soon despises himself because he discovers that instead of genuine interest, sympathy, empathy and affection it is rather boredom, indolence, caprice, self-interest, curiosity, lack of another source, stimulation, procrastination that are to a considerable extent the determinants of our willingness for conversation and union. It is tragic that although these are universal, it is only the aware person who recognizes them in himself; it is he who feels guilty and hesitates as to whether he should engage in conversation when he recognizes one of the latter determinants motivating him. For him, engaging in conversation is a moral act. Whereas the ignorant, not even engaged into caring about what motivates them, can only think of noble intentions (their vanity takes care of that) and enjoy the veil of a salutary illusion.

The inquisitive person, the one who questions even his own questioning, is surely something abnormal. But what is normal? Simply that which usually happens or rather should happen because it has happened a lot (according to the Zeitgeist of this time, of this place, under those circumstances, with those agents etc.). We sometimes use the word ‘natural’ the same way. When something happened which we did not expect, instead of damning our theory (which we couldn’t because at earlier times our ‘theory’ was simply conflated with reality, the distinction between what we believe and what is real sunk in much much later), our vanity actually invoked the realm of the supernatural.
The inquisitive person is unnatural and abnormal – that is statistically – but that does not determine his value. What is natural does not have a one-to-one relation with what is good. Because if by natural we mean what actually happens, has happened; exists; – in short, the Universe – then it follows that all so-called evil actions since they’ve occurred they are ipso facto natural. Thus if something being natural determines its goodness, then all actions that have occurred become automatically good, which is of course absurd.
It then follows that when someone uses the word ‘unnatural’ he is actually making a crypto-moral claim. Scientists witnessing a phenomenon they didn’t expect would not banish it as “unnatural”. They may in excitement exclaim the word when something unusual happens, but after having made sure that the phenomenon is indeed reproducible and was not due to some mistake in calculations or fault in the apparatus, they will hardly keep the term.
The gist of the issue lies in the belief that we can change our nature. It is this that supports using the word ‘unnatural’ morally. In a scientific experiment, provided that one does not alter the theoretical framework, fumble with the equipment, make a mistake in calculations, or alter the conditions under which it is being conducted, the result will almost always be the same. One cannot change that. However, our belief in free will prompts us to believe that under the exact same circumstances the result, that is the action, could have been different. We blame what we think we could change rather than accept what we can’t.

Notes:

[1] Translation from Greek: “When you are young you seek yourself, when you are old you lose him altogether.”

[2] In Greek, “miso” means half.

[3] In Greek “anthos” means flower.

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