Know someone well, spend a lot of time with them, and they speak to you as they speak to themselves. So there is a great deal to learn about W. from the questions he constantly asks me: At what point did you realise that you would amount to nothing?; When was it that you first became aware that you would be nothing but a failure?; When you look back on your life, what do you see?; How is it that you know what greatness is, and that you will never reach it?; What does it mean to you that your life has amounted to nothing?; Why have your friends never made you greater?
A short interview with W. in the pub after lunch: ‘What do you consider your greatest weakness?’ – ‘Never to come to terms with my lack of ability.’- ‘What do you think is most distortive about your experience of the world?’ – ‘I have this fantasy of being a community, and this prevents individual action.’ – ‘What’s motivated you so far?’ – ‘Fear and anxiety.’ – ‘What’s your greatest disappointment?’ – ‘To know what greatness is, and know that I will never, never achieve it, even if everything in my life was right.’ – ‘What is your worst trait?’ – ‘Fear and anxiety cloud all my judgements and relations.’ – ‘What is your greatest academic gift?’ – ‘I don’t think I have any. I see my whole academic career as a crushing failure. I only carry on out of a debilitating fear.’
W. and I compare ourselves to our friend R., who we both agree is better than us. He gives, we take. He has ideas, we plagiarise. He engages with the real world; our engagement is utterly mediated by books we half understand. He tries to change the world; we are utterly parasitical on people who try to change things. He makes people feel witty, funny and intelligent; we make them depressed and unmotivated; we are interested only in asking them why life is disappointing for them. Every day, for R., something new might occur. Every day only confirms for us that nothing new, for us, will ever have happened.
Lars Iyer's Blog 