yesterday i found myself purchasing simone de beauvoir's the ethics of ambiguity. i had no intention of buying it. i didn't even know it existed. but i felt compelled.
i read the first chapter in victoria park, away from the conference i'd been to that morning. i felt more attached to words on a page, and the grass under my body, than the words and faces of speakers at the conference. i needed something more grounded, more alone, more me.
after reading the first chapter i scrawled an existentialist rant in my notepad. it goes something like this:
"By uprooting himself from the world, man makes himself present to the world and makes the world present to him" (p12).
[This] suggests an ambiguity of distance/closeness. An 'in' that relies on an 'out'. A denial of self to get to a self. A circular motion of self-recognition [that always eclipses itself]. Like writing. I recognise myself in the words I write, and less so in the urge to write, or the tension that brings me to the page. But to enter the page I forget myself. I extract myself from myself (I write) and through extraction I come to see myself as me (a subject unified).
The parenthesis (Beauvoir references Husserl)
I parenthesise myself. I pretend a voice that echoes from within. Or, from the hand. It writes as though unmediated, as though natural. A spilling of self in ink. As artist, I express, through line and symbol, the story of who I am. As though I am a thing with borders, definition, morals, and purpose. I crystalise a self, for purposes of continuation, to know my worth, to know that I can exist (which is to create)... I have perfected this narrative of self to the point that it is accepted and believable. I carve myself in words, and the expectation (of everyone) is that I do so - [in this] there is social acknowledgment of 'me'. And this me-ness is my only true pursuit. I write to know me. But because I cannot fully know me, I'm returning to the page, again and again...
"the original scheme of man is ambiguous: he wants to be, and to the extent that he coincides with this wish, he fails" (p23)
this morning, in bed, i read chapter two. i learn about 5 kinds of 'men' - the sub-man, the serious man, the nihilist, the adventurer, and the passionate man. i see myself as the adventurer. The adventurer "has to declare himself" (60). "He throws himself into his undertakings with zest, into exploration, conquest, war, speculation, love, politics, but he does not attach himself to the end at which he aims; only to his conquest" (58).
and yes, i'm feeling uninspired to finish 'that project', but i have enjoyed the process/conquest/journey. but there are other journeys (which do excite me) to be had. and my urge to jump ship is easy, because i care little for the destination.
"Whether he succeeds or fails, he goes right ahead throwing himself into a new enterprise to which he will give himself with the same indifferent ardor" (59).
however, "Favourable circumstances are enough to transform the adventurer into a dictator" (62). oh dear. but perhaps more distressing is my hatred of and detachment from others (which i prefer to call independence).
"His fault is believing that one can do something for oneself without others and even against them" (63).
so i guess the life of an adventurer is not all (ethical) fun and games. and there's quite a sting in that last statement which reverberated after i read it. perhaps today's mantra can be found at the close of this chapter:
"I concern others and they concern me" (72).
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