“To you, dear X”
FROM ME: ANNA JAROSZ
Five Letters and Five Drawings from the Loneliest Room
“You know what, sometimes it seems to me we’re living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what’s good and what isn’t, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves… And then, we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead[i]
Hello,
I said I can’t write about something I don’t believe in
And here I am, finding myself writing to you from scratch
From the deep, deep unknown pit
That you are in, too
I question the values of strict definitions that surround us as if we were prisoners of someone else’s mind
Don’t you think?
We all believe in definitions – oftentimes the ones that have been created for us
We just endure in alien interpretations of what we once called Reality
Desperately roving on in the search for fulfilment
Dear X,
We all err on the side of caution
In a moment like this, I question, like Roland Barthes, the unsettling human predisposition to judge, name and (last but not least) tame the world
He once said (perhaps)
“The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance”[ii]
Hello,
I couldn’t sleep.
I’ve been trying to understand what is wisdom
You would say – it does sound a little silly
But since we are all stuck here, maybe this is (in fact) the correct moment
The right historical situation
The geopolitical instant pause
I must say, however, I do feel a tiny bit worried
Look outside the window, it is so sunny, so welcoming
Let’s go outside!
Slavoj Žižek endlessly repeats:
We live in the era of science
Can anyone imagine anything more stupid than a virus?[iii]
Dear X,
We found each other
In this enormously weak human prohibition
But do you even exist?
Hello,
Today I am ready to talk about it, you know
This demoniacal potential of what was once called
Bond
But before I will start outlining the potential of being ready for death
I will sing you a song
I have read an article on how to sing and breathe in order to cure the anxiety – would you like to listen to this?
You know, Dear X, we stand in this shuttering violence of convulsion that, to be sure, is wanting or being able to become integrated.[iv]
Our bodies are breaking up
Are you feeling sick?
I think I have nothing else to say right now
I will finish this essay with a list as follows:
- Existence together: true theatre
- Definitions: still an unknown, maybe should become an object of global criticism
- Body + metaphor: ?
Hello,
I saw a man
I saw a cadaver
Hello,
I would like to apologise, I haven’t eaten in a long time
I keep thinking about the idea of Togetherness
Understood in (perhaps) self-righteous method
We are stood in a mist, look around Dear X
Nearly 8000000000 encountering Planet Earth
Significance of our remainings is still under discussion
Dear X,
I can see a bridge outside the window
Proudly standing, almost judging
We get sick of being ourselves
We forget to look around
At the time of writing this
Your human imagination and vision is exploding
Isn’t it?
References:
[i] Tokarczuk, O. (eng. trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones). 2019. Fitzcarraldo Editions. ed. 1
[ii] Barthes, R. (eng. trans. Howard, R.). 1982. Camera Lucida. Hill & Wang. ed. 1
[iii] https://youtu.be/HabyJi66l0w
[iv] Kristeva J. 1941. Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection. Columbia University Press.