A story of value.
The streets of middle-class London have a peculiar feeling to them, as does the little corner one finds oneself in, a corner built for the decaying. Here poor and rich mix. Here the fortunate wed eye to eye with the unfortunate. It is a library, a most virulent place for the joyous; in fact the joyous don’t often stop by here, they walk right past head-high and smile erect. It is truly a most nauseating and sordid display of the cosmopolitan.
I sit here humbly and yet with an arrogant air that I breath out of my lungs into the atmosphere. I have in one hand my slick and smooth Benson & Hedges soldier of doom, and on the other my pad and pen; they stand there side by side like two bashful wenches, mother and daughter, awaiting the arrival of my thoughts. As I finish with this most affluent death stick I begin to reveal the local supermarket’s most cavalier sesame bagels. They are truly terrific, and an excellent way to stock up on carbohydrates; especially if you are to spend the next couple of hours splitting your head in two with post-structuralist preaching.
They really are lovely these bagels. As I sit here enjoying these little breaded charmers I look up to notice a rather vast swarm of pidgeons marching intently, yet always cautiously, in my direction – crumbs, I thought. I watch them, they are interesting these little birds. I sometimes wonder whether ornithology was the career nature intended for me – birds can teach you a lot about life. The man next to me, witnessing this current and imminent state of affairs, remarks at once with a prominent, distateful look ,
“Take care with the crumbs will yah, those little buggers are annoying. Don’t give the vile creatures an invitation. I don’t want them near me. Little scavangers, sometimes I wonder why nature bothers. I am glad we’re species apart, and human beings don’t participate in such scavanging.”
I smile in recognition, and for a second pause in utter silence and my mind enters quietude only to burst out with following,
“My good man, what if instead of eating a bagel I was counting a scandalous amount of money. What if every now and then, at will and without consideration, I began dropping £50 and £20 notes? What would you and all those around us do? How would you behave? Complexity my good man, no matter how opulent and labyrinth-like, cannot conceal the shinning core, the value judgment - it takes a looker to see what lays hidden in the mazes of complexity. Humanity is a complexity, nothing more, nothing less. A complexity that must be brought back to its innocence and overcome.”
We’re (currently) no different to pidgeons; we just have words and thoughts. Observe them next time you’re out and about, watch their actions and interactions. The concealement through cunning displacement of a value from one object, one direction, to another does not hide anything – it does not hide the mode of valuation, the valuating behind the value.
A story of value.
Seduction, envy.
Envy is the most potent aphrodisiac. Never mind chocolate, strawberries, oer’dourves, oysters or whatever other vile food our humble Markets provide us with as the nourishment of love. This one, tiny, psychological dilemma is the cornerstone of attraction, and makes seduction that much easier; some may even argue possible.
Envy is not to be mistaken with its close cousin, jealousy. Jealousy is a peculiar little emotion whose effects can’t ever be universalized without deviation. People react differently to jealousy at different times and in different degrees. It is an unyielding emotion almost impossible to get under control because it dances around self-esteem and it’s lack thereof. It often comes like a bomb to self-esteem itself. Jealousy is a difficult tool to use, for it can enhance a seduction and make a hard prey easier, but at the same time it can destroy an already wounded prey from the bottom up. A tool like jealousy needs careful consideration, and the prey’s self-esteem is the place to start. This is not about jealousy and its role in seduction, so we must return to envy.
Envy is simple and almost necessary for all attraction, one could say envy is the condition for the possibility of attraction. What is envy? – there are many forms, but here’s its role and form in seduction. (Don’t dilute it; try and understand it.) Envy is first and foremost a feeling; a feeling that reveals a state of mind, a belief that poses as knowledge, regarding the person who inhabits the feeling. Envy has nothing to do with other people. Other people are simply what’s known in science as the catalysts of envy, but envy itself is prior to other people. Envy is grounded in a self-perception; of course you may like to contend that self-perception is fundamentally others-perception, but regardless the result is the same. It always speaks of a state of mind in the person, even if the other plays a role in that state of mind.
What is this feeling of envy, and the state of mind it presupposes? It is the feeling of a lack; envy is impossible without a lack. The feeling of a lack presupposes that something is missing within the person. Envy reveals that missing thing through the feeling, but also through the perception – if the feeling wasn’t there in the first place, or immediately present. The thing missing is attached outwardly to another, who obviously possesses it. All attraction has a certain degree of envy, you cannot be drawn into another unless they possess something you wish to have in yourself or for yourself – ultimately, there is no distinction (for the seducer) between the in yourself and for yourself. This is the fundamental principle that seduction operates on: unless someone is lacking something or be made to lack something, they cannot be seduced. The seducer always admires and mockingly smirks at the young seduceés who wish to seduce someone who’s beyond their understanding – they move in to the seduction without knowing what the person is missing (or even if they are missing anything) and how to offer it. They instead offer them what they think everyone wants or is missing. That is why a person in love is impossible to seduce unless they are taken outside of that state; but, if that state of love is potent enough (or a specific kind of love, a real love), then nothing can take them out of it. Seduction needs a lack.
How does envy relate to lack? One cannot be envious of another, unless they possess something which one perceives to be missing. The crucial question is: why is this, in terms of seduction, the cornerstone of all attraction? Why is envy the condition for the possibility of attraction? Further, how does this same notion work with Narcissists, who are fundamentally attracted to themselves? A simple way to put it is: would you move towards, or be attracted to, something you already have? (This something must be seen in its broadest sense, which is why seduction is the hardest, most fine-tuned art there is – it could be the highest social art; god forbid!) The Narcissist is always lost in that what s/he admires. They are a paradox, and easy one too. They desire themselves, yet what they desire is also something that they keep at a distance – in Freudian terms, they have a peculiar relationship to their superego, and then the world. The Narcissist is the easiest victim for a seducer, for their self-love is never real: give them another Narcissist with more self-love than their own and watch them be seduced, and threatened. From that threat, with a few manoeuvres, they can be easily seduced. Another way to deal with the Narcissist is to give them more self-love, more reason to love themselves, but the kind which they did not see initially in themselves. Add another dimension to their self-love and glue it to you, observe and admire a trait that nobody observes and admires; but the Narcissist can and usually will regardless of how fickle. There is, in reality, a narcissist in everyone.
To sum up. Attraction presupposes a lack, by wanting to have what someone likes, and liking what someone doesn’t already have. Envy presupposes a desire for something one thinks they should have, but don’t, and would like. (‘The thinks they should have’ part I left out of the description of envy, because this part is very complicated, and the seducer at times can instil this with ease on people without their knowing.) Envy and attraction are mutually inclusive. Without being able to invoke envy in the target through revealing their lack and incorporating/providing it, the seduction cannot happen. Lack and seduction come hand in hand. Envy and attraction are siblings in seduction. The envy in attraction however, as most of you reading this will encounter, is concealed from the person – it poses as attraction. It poses as a desire to have that person, to want them, to be drawn into them. In truth you are drawn into what you are missing, you are drawn into an ideal in your self that this astute individual has created for you as a picture of themselves. They’ve become what you lack. This is how seduction operates; it is how seduction happens. The great seducer never gives up this lack, but keeps reimbursing it. The great seducer is like a pomegranate, s/he offers you that which you lack and desire one bit at a time, such that you want more and more. They give and withdraw, give and withdraw. Look at yourself next time you see someone you like, and then ask, what is it that I like about them, and do I lack this in myself? Am I ‘envious’ of them? Then observe yourself when attraction has dissipated, look for why that happened – what occured? Your ideal was not so ideal after all, the lack was overshadowed and the other fulfilled it too quickly – the worm had come out of the fuit. Attraction and envy are like a fruit that perfectly conceals the worm, the only way to find the tiny hole the worm had left is to look carefully at the fruit. Envy is the aphrodisiac par excellence!
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The real question should be: is seduction the highest form of social art? Is lack the real (only) ground of attraction/desire? Maybe currently, but who knows. It works, that’s all the seducer knows and needs to know.
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Aggrandizing
How peculiar that one human being would unreservedly aggrandize another and place them above one’s (and quite possibly everybody else’s) reach. It is remarkable as it is worrying that we do, and have been doing, this without conservation for a long time. In this aggrandizing we’ve lost something – closeness and personal strength. Yet, through it we’ve gained something – utility and humility.
An excerpt from Osho’s “The Tantra Vision”
I wanted to share this little excerpt with you all…
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All my obscurities, all my hindrances – things that were obstructing my vision – are removed. I can see reality directly. Repressions are no longer there; my energies are in a flow. I am not against my body, I am not inimical to my body; I am one with my body. The division is dropped. My senses are all open and functioning at the optimum. My mind is silent, there is no obsessive thinking. When I need to, I think. When I don’t need to, I don’t think. I am the master of my house. A light was born in me, and with that light, all obscurities have disappeared. Now nothing obstructs me, my vision is total. The wall that was around me has disappeared.
That wall consists of three things: repressions in the body, dust in the senses, and thoughts in the mind. These are the three bricks that the China Wall around you is made of. Remove these bricks, and the wall disappears. And when the wall is gone, you come to know the One.
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Protected: Iker’s Dream: Kierkegaard’s Interpretation
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The Problem of Negation
When a person says no to X it does not invariably imply that he says yes to -X. This is the naive stupidity of reason, it is too rigid. This is most saliently shown when placed in juxtaposition with passion; it is blind to it because the latter appears as a contradiction. However, more accurately, it is a paradox that masquerades as a contradiction when seen through the lense of reason. In passion it remains the paradox that extends reason beyond its boundary, and gives it a new locus of control, allows room for a new boundary… Reason is intensive, passion is extensive.
Kant, I believe, called it the infinite in the table of judgments under quality, later under the categories it becomes, conspicuously: limitation. Kant argued that limitation in the categories is negation coupled with reality (the other two categories under quality). What does this mean? Let’s try and represent it. The infinitive would be something along the lines of: the cup is not-red. When the infinite judgment of quality turns categorical through the synthesis (by the imagination) of the understanding, time and space is added along with the intuitions to form cognition proper. How can we change “the cup is not-red” into a categorical claim of limitation? It would be something of the sort: I see a cup that is not-red, but it is (for what does it mean to negate reality)? To unpack what Kant means by negation, reality and quality will result in, quite simply: pain. An interesting question would be: does Kant allow room for extensity under quality in the table of categories, or is it too heavily bound by the intensity of logic? And what relationship does this have to the notion of limitation as the direct correlative in the transition to the categories, from the notion of the infinite under the table of judgments (Logic)?
A most fascinating phenomenon….
A lonely woman; alas, forgive me and allow me to reiterate so that we may begin to comprehend each other. A woman who harbours the courage and pride of heart for solitude is the most philosophically and experientially fascinating phenomenon I shall ever encounter in this lifetime, and I shall never tire of admiring it. I shall never tire of being pleasantly perplexed and be kindly bestowed with a look of émerveillement in this phenomenal presence.
The Lover’s Diary: Intra-ordinary
I sit here with the most arrogant smirk a human being can imagine; that’s right, judge me, I want everyone who reads this to judge me. In retrospect this has been one of my most fascinating experiences – not the only one that’s the same as this, but definitely the only one that gave birth to a whole new world for me. I’ve had experiences such as this all over the place in the past, but this one is somewhat different. I think the only difference is my awareness of everything that was going on and what that awareness did to my world in that instance. I won’t hold it back too long, here it comes. Brace yourself and prepare to defend yourself; for none of this you will find plausible.
Canary Wharf… Those of you who do not know Canary Wharf, think of the London version of Manhattan – it might help. The streets and public transport are smudged with the dreary vision of three proud little colours: black, grey and navy. Every now and then you encounter a cream-coloured dot of what most definitely must be a dress, just to add to that very ’easy-on-the-eye’ triad mix of dullness. Canary Wharf feels to me like a sea full of decrepit souls, a graveyard of the downtrodden and the worm-eaten. Everyday on my way to work, I pass through it, just to remind myself of what could have been. This journey enlivens me as much as it drains me; it affirms as much as it negates me.
This particular, cold and humid morning was ambivalently different to me, I couldn’t fix the difference. My most recent encounter with a woman had left me drained, I hadn’t noticed a single woman in a good long while now. I was beginning to worry about my libido and heart – I hadn’t felt a woman in neither place for much too long; longer than is normal for me. This hadn’t occurred to me until after this particular experience – ironically enough. I was walking down the escalators, and my vision caught something; the back of a woman who – God forbid if we knew each other – looked, quite simply, dashing! Something inside spoke to me without words, it took over me and wanted to speak to her. Walking down the escalators it talked to her, “hey…” it said silently, as I passed by her and ‘accidentally’, but almost automatically, brushed my shoulder against hers. Doing this I walked intently right past her not looking back, knowing that I had spoken to her at that moment, making completely sure I did not turn around to look at her in any way. My body did not want her to know that I was aware of what was going on all along, it said keep walking to me and sit down. I did and I began shuffling through my bag looking for a book, which I pulled out. I then slowly looked up at the most fascinating vision: a blonde, elegant vision with the classiest shoes I’ve seen all day. She was walking in my direction making eye contact with me and flaunting the subtlest smirk of affirmation a person could expose, you’d need extremely refined eyes to notice it. Not a thought of doubt crossed my mind, we both knew there was something going on between us. There was a communication that had opened up, the most silent communication. Yet, the loudest and clearest communication any human being could have with another. Ironically, walking in my direction, she sat down right next to me and began to shuffle her bag. She positioned her body facing mine, ever so slightly, I could only notice the openness and the pleasant, almost electrifying discomfort it induced in me – a discomfort that only signalled awareness to me. This openness showed me that we were talking at that very moment. From the moment my body said ‘hey’ to her, to her sitting next to me and the feeling of this openness. She began fidgeting with her bag trying to keep herself busy, but at the same time looking for something to lure me into a conversation but not able to find anything – her own body didn’t want the conversation to happen. We were burning with this subtle communication, things were bordering awkward; not the insipid, nauseating kind of awkwardness – this kind is wrought with desire and electricity. In an ideal world we’d be in each other’s arms forgetting the world and loving each other, without a word being spoken right there and then! Who needs words!? Words are for utility, and I am not interested in making utility the primacy of my existence. Utility to me has a secondary ontological primacy, I am interested in feeling, in Love – and how heterogeneous (at times) this is to utility, I cannot even begin to explain. Love made utilitarian is Love lost; J. S. Mill was never in Love; so quite simply… fuck him!
Conversation is so easy at this point, it is also the most important next step. Yet, I did not and would not allow it! I opened my book and began to read; the train came and I picked up my stuff and boarded. Any word that would have come out of my mouth would have one response and one response only: loss of this intra-ordinary communication for and between the both of us. We’d have entered a whole new reality in the moment the first word escaped our mouths. The next level would be the ordinary level of communication, which with the help of certain boundaries is always in caution of the intra-ordinary and quite simply is erected in response to it, and more often than not, against it. A reality crawling with dysfunction in an intra-ordinary sense, a reality broken from the start, one that is allergic to Love; ironically enough it is the only reality we know, and we are bestowed with by this mediocrity machine we call society/culture. This level of communication would have been suspended and entered a state of prematurity – in that state it would have lost itself. These premature states are everywhere, in all levels of communication, there are premature leaps from one level of communication to the next that loses the smooth transition, and quite simply breaks one’s legs. A smooth transition that is necessary for the maintenance of the previous communication, which in turn is necessary for Love. The tension would have made a new trajectory, which quite possibly, in fact more often than not, inevitably would have died and entered a state of equilibrium in the presence of the premature transition into the ordinary level of communication. In this way at the very least, if this intra-ordinary communication was powerful enough she could go away and think about it, it could brighten her day. It could even improve her sexual life that very night, if she is not inhibited in that manner. (It always amuses me when men [and women] make a big, negative deal of their fantasies about other people when in bed with their lovers – relationships have been broken on this account alone.) Certain things need time, others don’t. This intra-ordinary communication needs to reach lengths where the body literally forces the mind and mouth to speak; but speak minimally (for the mind and mouth counter this type of communication with all its energies, it is trained to do so) . It forces it to speak so little, that nothing is needed but the base of civility for what’s to come, for the passion that awaits, for the Love that’s possible. A Love that transcends all reason, the kind of Love that is allergic to reason, it defies it and creates punctures in experience. A communication between two human beings that if spoken is destroyed, but if kept silent, shines so bright that blinds everyone in its stead. Who’s powerful enough to do this though? Who is truly brave and courageous enough to abandon oneself in this way, to allow their passion to burn things, to burn reason and burn them too? I am tired and weary of the incompetence and mediocrity of our modern world, it suffocates me. Such that I cannot move freely and breath proudly the air that’s disdainfully mixed with the tarmac of this commercially oriented existence. It’s insufferable to a Lover, it kills him slowly; ‘kills him softly… with ‘his’ (hers etc.) words’ like that cheesy song by the Fugees used to proclaim – although I’d alter the song a little and say, ‘killing me softly with words’ - fullstop! Don’t come to me with reason to argue against what I have said in this diary entry, take your reason elsewhere – it has no value here. If you don’t like what you’re reading, then don’t believe it and just ignore it – look at it as a little piece of fiction. This way you can feel better about yourself and your mediocrity. After all, not all of us can be different, interesting and brave human beings; brave enough to go against ourselves and the rest of the world for an experience that’s worthy of the loss of it all.
