Much that seems farfetched about Bataille's way of thinking-his stress on the hateful and morbid aspects of sexual excitement, and his belief that cruel and unusual forms of eroticism can help carry a human being "to the farthest bound of possibility"--has been corroborated, albeit in more modest terms, by other students of sexual excitement, and by other aficionados of consensual sado-masochism. According to their testimony, it is indeed possible to heal old wounds and to experience a kind of mystical rapture through forms of erotic behavior that transform guilt into joy, pain into pleasure, torture into ecstasy, and (most miraculously of all) the wish to die into an overwhelming and unspeakable feeling of love: sometimes for another human being; sometimes for the world in its "unknowable and incomprehensible continuity," and sometimes simply for "what one is".

As one of Bataille's besotted erotic heroes describes the experience in Story of the Eye, "It struck me that death was the sole outcome of my erection" and that "the goal of my sexual licentiousness" was "a geometric incandescence (among other things, the coinciding point of life and death, being and nothingness), perfectly fulgurating." 

the passion of michel foucault, james miller

I actually need a journal because I need to get everything out and without obligation to make it nice, or easy, or accessible in any way. Maybe I'll take up writing with a pen and paper and make it even more private than this blog nobody reads anyway. I feel so much like everything is a performance and there's an expectation that you will always perform flawlessly but I don't want to perform at all, I want to "be". And that sounds corny saying it and someday I'll be able to without commenting that I GET it sounds corny but it still applies. For the past 6 months my dilemma has been how do I be genuine while still being self-aware? And now I'm realizing that this drive, or desire to come across as self aware as if its some barometer of intelligence is stupid. It's stupid to perform, or to make a show of knowing that I perform, any of it. What I want is to laugh without analyzing the reasons and talk without each word being weighted. Something is affected in my writing when I know I have an audience, and I hate it and want to get away from that. I want to keep an audience because I want people to be invested in me because on my own I find it hard to be invested in myself, but I don't want my writing to suffer from that, and I don't want it to be false.

how do I avoid being corny but take myself seriously - the question of 2016

answer: i can't all the time but eventually and once in a while i will get it right

I'm learning to be wary of intense periods of growth, not because they're bad necessarily as much as I feel no control over them and that scares me. There's pressure to create as much as you can during this time and also pressure to not burn out. Do I say everything I want to say right now or do I hold it in for a future date, so I don't run out of things? I always thought being a good writer means you never run out of things to say but I always feel like I don't have anyhing to say so how can I be one? Maybe I'm not is the easiest answer and will take some time to convince myself out of.

Now that I'm out of school for the quarter I can focus my energies on writing and reading. I know to write better I need to read more and I want to go back to doing that. The more I expose myself to new things, the better my writing and subjects will become. What I've done is locked myself out of Tumblr and now I need to lock myself out of Facebook. The culture of instant gratification will not take me down with it, I am determined. Because I am too sensitive to it, I have to set boundaries.

What does it mean to feel extremely ashamed of being who you are and doing what you do - even if you are morally pure? If that means anything anymore. Shame is useless, as is guilt, and I need to find a way to dispose of them because they aren't helping me at all. Still... I do feel shameful working on myself when there's so much to be done in the world. Like, I don't think I'm deserving of my own time. Or that any creative endeavor of mine is automatically self-serving and undeserving of focus. It's true I need to get my mind off myself, but it's also true that I can benefit from constructively working on myself. Sorting out the difference is the hard part.

I genuinely don't think most people want the best for me and I'm like, always crying about it. Self-worth and abandonment and dissociation are my biggest obstacles at this point in my life. I really do want to get better... And I want to be able to live genuinely or at least close to it.

1/6/15: a message to everyone I have ever met

I know I can be disappointing but please don't lose faith in me.

There was a point when every day was a new trauma but I think, I'd like to think, I've reached beyond that now. I looked in the mirror today and I look old.. I'm still young but overnight I've changed. The only way to describe my latest psychosis is "ecclesiastic" - there's always the epiphanic moment in melodrama when the music swells and the heroine is filmed in a close up soft focus looking up and I think I've reached that point. My whole life is stretched behind me and I see it so clearly and for once it's not in horror. I've reached a state of calm I didn't think I ever could and I don't know how long it will last. Everything feels like I'm at sea.

I don't want fear to define me anymore - of anyone or anything or myself or my feelings. There's still trepidation, but I want to work on what I can and I know that that is so, so much. Maybe the calm is affected, maybe I'm posing as a yogi for the first week of 2016, or maybe this is a real moment I'm experiencing. I've spent the past year doubting my experiences and sorting out reality and now I'm inclined to follow it through to the end. It's not impulsion that drives me, but a knowing probe into my possibilities. I wonder if I'm past my prime? But then, I still haven't accomplished much.

Once I've made up my mind, there is little that can change it. This can be a blessing or a curse - it means I'm very moral but I also risk bordering reactionary. How can I be more malleable but stick to my convictions? Do I need to be more malleable? I'm always second guessing myself as it is... I'm doing it right now. What I have decided is I want to live, and I want to write, and I don't care if its ever acknowledged as significant because most likely it is not. For me it is beneficial and its in these small victories I find hope.