My man... "First things first: I have not rea...

2009-12-29T19:28:18.409-05:00

My man... "First things first: I have not read the book...yet."

Yet you will proclaim it morosophy. A term not used enough by the way.

I know you're better than that kind of excuse making. Still, you wanted to play cards so...

Let's start with suicide, shall we? Wallace killed himself. It's true. It is wretched to even attempt to comprehend and yet we know it was so. He lived in sufficient enough mental anguish to chose nothingness over existence (I am honoring his metaphysical beliefs, as their outcomes were the ones on which he based his decision to kill himself).

So does the fact that he killed himself discredit what he said about life or the living of life?

Perhaps some frame of reference is needed. He gave the talk two years before he ended his life.

Are we the same person two years later? More succinctly: Do we hold the same beliefs over time or do they change? And more apropos: Is it possible to lose or gain faith? Would that not involve an ontological change of monumental and fundamental order occurring over a period of time (even if in the time span of a blink)?

So is it not possible that this book was written by someone who at the time was very capable of giving good advice to young people on the subject of when to think?

Is it not also possible that two years later this person while in the midst of biochemical depression no longer could heed let alone understand his own previous thinking?

The irony involved in this comment and response sincerely bothers me. This is exactly what Wallace was writing about. Wallace would have said that humanity would be found in not reacting to the suicide but to think about the immense suffering that must occur to make someone who was formerly vibrant want to take their own life. That is the point of the humanities, and also the point of the book.

"How to apply your degree in the humanities to life in general" would have been a more revealing title.

The suicide, not to sound gallant about it, is moot. The question of why is not. To ask the questions involved in why requires thinking.

Condemnation does not. That's just towing the prescribed line.

Let's use something more aligned to spiritual laws (just to play the Angel's advocate here): Does the profligate rake, after transforming their lives through faith and belief in their salvation, not wonder about the strangeness of their former life? Of course they would. The recovering drug addict must be amazed by their former mental state, otherwise they would not be recovering.

I think back two years and wonder why I did certain things. Even mundane things. It is amazing to think about.

It is with vertiginous causality in mind that I find no semblance of hypocrisy in Wallace's writing. He changed for the worse. I have never been diagnosed with clinical depression, nor have I shown symptoms of the disease, so it is with sincere horror that I apprehend the concept of such unbearable pain.

First things first: I have not read the book ... y...

2009-12-19T09:08:46.503-05:00

First things first: I have not read the book ... yet.

That being said, I am responding to the part of your post where you write about "affirming life" in juxtaposition with "committing suicide." Was this irony intentional?! I shall read the book if only to discover why anyone would want to follow such morosophy.

Comments on The Devil's Accountant: Breathing Excercizes: David Foster Wallace's This ...

My man... "First things first: I have not rea...

First things first: I have not read the book ... y...