| Dear Comrades, |
| Have you chosen this life of study and exposition for yourselves? Have you been selected? Are you vying for affirmation? How does one speak for a man who claimed he had nothing in common with himself? |
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| Do his stories seem to provide you with some critical distance — a third party-like view of your own debasement? Have they given you a sense of momentary repose (a fleeting dissolution of panic and despair)? Do you ever catch yourselves laughing hysterically? |
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| I’ve pictured each of you finding a new commitment of mind under some stairs (or perhaps in some forgotten cellar room alone with his books). I sometimes pretend you can escape the Modern World at will. |
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| It doesn’t matter. Horrific arbitrariness continues. Mindless constellations of power still entangle our most intimate archives and ambitions. |
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| Did expressing this awareness free him? Has it been enough for you? |
| jeremy |
