He would say I exhibited a philosophical masochism, if he did not know better, he'd say that all my studying – my supposed studying, my let's-pretend studying, was a way of punishing myself, of running myself up against my own limits – of destroying me, or that part of me which has the temerity to believe it can think – not once, but over and over again.
Yes, that's what he'd say – that I set myself, as a course of reading, books I could not possibly understand by authors whose depths I could not possibly fathom – that I set myself, as a course of thinking, the pondering of topics entirely beyond my powers – so far beyond them, indeed, that they mocked and laughed at my alleged powers – that they mocked and laughed at me – that I, studying, ostensibly studying, really mocked and laughed at myself.
But then he knows it's not for my benefit that I study, or pretend to study – or fail, in ostensibly studying to study, that I'm not thinking of myself at all, of punishing myself (as I should be punished), of mocking and laughing at myself (as I should be laughed at and mocked), but of punishing him, W., of mocking and laughing at him.
Philosophical sadism, that's what he calls it, W. Philosophical cruelty, aimed directly at W., directly at him, and solely to spite him.
Lars Iyer's Blog 