Too tired and dazed to read or write (I have a book review to complete, lectures to prepare, but …), there’s nothing else but to find my way to writing here, if it is possible.
To find my way to writing: the great advantage of writing here is that I can write as it were with the surprise of being able to write – that surprise is the wind at my back. Only it is a feeble wind and does not blow me far. Already, five lines in, and I am becalmed.
In a sense, there are plenty of things to write – I have been reading about the Cynics, and could write a blog about Diogenes and the rest, inhabiting tubs and temple porticos and forming peculiar communities. And I’ve been reading about Heraclitus – I know I want to write about the image of the lyre in his fragments, I’ve always found it wonderful. And then, because of Heraclitus, I went back to reading Char …
Yes, I could write about all of this, but it has fallen away from me. I am like the man in one of my favourite paintings by Munch, ‘Between the Clock and the Bed’, his arms fallen by his sides, his hands limp. He gazes out of us and I am frightened by his gaze. I won’t look in the mirror tonight.
Lars Iyer's Blog 