Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties - all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name’s Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion - these are the places where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.
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David Foster Wallace (via quietism) zu: gemütliches beisammensein, nr. 44 |
gemütliches beisammensein XXXXII
“a politics which defends something just because it feels good is itself guilty of not speaking of the surroundings of the comfortable community. the process that was mentioned before, that individuals succeed in competition and liberate themselves on the costs of others, can be transported also to the actions of collectives. the degree of them feeling good marks in the same time how much they won in the competition. it’s a luxury to feel good in a competitive society, and it feels even better in companionship. and since it is not possible under present social conditions to feel good with the global human society, we found a limit of the concept.” gemütlichkeit
