Status Updates From Tagebücher. Kritische Ausga...

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It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.

It is astounding how I have systematically destroyed myself in the course of the years, it was like a slowly widening breach in a dam, a purposeful action. The spirit that brought it about must now be celebrating triumphs; why doesn’t it let me take part in them? But perhaps it hasn’t yet achieved its purpose and can therefore think of nothing else.

I am a memory come alive, hence my insomnia.

Going to pieces. To go to pieces so pointlessly and unnecessarily.

Completely indifferent and apathetic. A well gone dry, water at an unattainable depth and no certainty it is there. Nothing, nothing. … What is there to tie me to a past or a future? The present is a phantom state for me; I don’t sit at the table but hover round it. Nothing, nothing. Emptiness, boredom, no, not boredom, merely emptiness, meaninglessness, weakness.

Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone – never.

Kafka’s diaries might honestly be my favorite thing I’ve ever read. In fact, “favorite” is understating it. This is a guidebook for life. It’s impact on me so far is comparable only to the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, the sum total of David Wojnarowicz’s writings, and Kafka’s own letters to Milena. Those three authors basically write the way I think, but especially Kafka.

I am more and more unable to think, to observe, to determine the truth of things, to remember, to speak, to share an experience; I am turning to stone, this is the truth.

(A lovely short sketch.)

I paced up and down my room from early morning unto twilight. The window was open, it was a warm day. The noise of the narrow street beat in uninterruptedly. By now I knew every trifle in the room from having looked at in the course of my pacing up and down. My eyes had travelled over every wall. I had pursued the pattern of the rug to its last convolution, noted every mark of age it

[…]

(Yet more quotes I have to save for my sanity:)

Only this everlasting waiting, eternal helplessness.

There will certainly be no one to blame if I should kill myself, even if the immediate cause should for instance appear to be F.’s [Felice’s] behaviour. Once, half asleep, I pictured the scene that would ensue if, in anticipation of the end, the letter of farewell in my pocket, I should come to her house, should be rejected as a suitor, lay the letter on the table, go to the balcony, break away from all

[…]

What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.

Uncertainty, aridity, peace – all things will resolve themselves into these and pass away.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Weakness, self-destruction, tip of a flame of hell piercing the floor.

To be pulled in through the ground-floor window of a house by a rope tied around one’s neck and to be yanked up, bloody and ragged, through all the ceilings, furniture, walls, and attics, without consideration, as if by a person who is paying no attention, until the empty noose, dropping the last fragments of me when it breaks through the roof tiles, is seen on the roof.

It has become very necessary to keep a diary again. The uncertainty of my thoughts, F., the ruin in the office, the physical impossibility of writing and the inner need for it.