W. feels a failure, he says. Who can help but feel a failure? Ah, but I expect he thinks I luxuriate in it. True enough, I admitted it, and said: ‘I know my problem. I can’t begin anything’; nothing begins here. ‘Well that can be your problem then’, said W.
We had just been talking of those who had been seized by a Great Problem and how much better at philosophy they were than us. I have no problem with this. W. suspects it’s because I think I have a Great Problem. ‘What, the inability to begin?’ I say. He detects a pride in my failure. He thinks I write of my failure far too much. ‘Spurious is just about what a failure you are’, he says. Granted … And then he said, the previous day, that he liked the posts on buffoonery. ‘That’s my concept’, I said. ‘Michel Serres has written a whole book on it’, he said.
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