Aphorisms on November 19, or, Being a Self, Vol. 1
Recently, typically, because I am surrounded by people who think about these things, I have had conversations with several people about their trouble with speaking or writing the “I” — as in, I exist, I believe such-and-such things, I am a speaking subject — these statements are impossible for them. In having these conversations, I have realized that I have no problem with the “I,” or, if those problems exist, (as they seemed to, a few months ago, when I wrote this), they do not prevent me from claiming it. I speak. I am currently writing this. I want to style these aphorisms after Sarah Manguso’s in 300 Arguments and “Short Days,” with some in first-, second-, and third-person, a seamless juggling of the immediate subjective, the distant subjective, and the somewhat objective, that is, the hypothetical. But I seem only able to confidently use the first-person.
There are two (three?) reasons for this: I do not know enough about anything except myself to speak truthfully and completely about it, and what is writing if it is not truthful and complete? (A lot of things, of course, but bear with me.) (See here, the aside. Qualifying the assertion. Again, bear with me.) I have now forgotten the second and third reasons.
People speak too much about their opinions as if they were fact. This I know to be true.
But there are facts of course, like, every American who votes Republican makes a moral choice — the wrong one. And: there are moral choices, there is right and wrong, and a universal code of ethics.
(The Democratic Party is not perfect, it is far from that, is probably terrible, but still better. Politics right now, and perhaps throughout its history worldwide, is demoralizing. But it is not my goal here, now, to talk about it.)
A spacious room with high ceilings is the best place to do intellectual work. Your thoughts have the space they need to expand and coalesce. If you don’t believe me, sit in the reading room of a large library, and observe what happens. This, by the way, is not an original idea. I think Virginia Woolf and Plato gestured towards claims about rooms and the spatial nature of ideas respectively, but I can’t be sure. I have yet to read them in a spacious room with high ceilings, or anywhere, actually. You see my dilemma.
Whenever I read, I become either bored or manic with the excitement of realizing that I am intelligent and others before me have been intelligent too. Neither of these is particularly healthy, or at all expedient.
To say, “I am powerful,” and “I am brilliant,” and “I will win a Pulitzer prize,” is to be experiencing inflated self-esteem, grandiosity, and likely hypomania. But how to tell when what you’re saying is true?
You are powerful, but not beyond measure.
You are brilliant, and you will win a Pulitzer prize, but your professors will confuse you with the other African woman in your class.
She is Zimbabwean, and your friend, and whenever you have a conversation about the cultural influence of Nigeria, you feel slightly patriotic. Your people are special.
For your twentieth birthday, you decided to cook Jollof rice for your friends. You were standing over the pot when you felt every ounce of energy leave your body. All you wanted was to lie in a heap on the floor and feel your bones dissolve. Despite yourself, you finished making the Jollof rice. It wasn’t very good. A month later, you had to complete your undergraduate thesis. You sat in an empty classroom, with notebook and computer, but no matter how hard you tried, you could not hold a sentence in your head. You sat on the floor and cried. Despite yourself, you finished writing the thesis. It wasn’t very good. Still, you go back to it every now and then. It exists. It is real. It helped you get into grad school. There is no evidence that you ever powered through and finished making that Jollof rice. (Except I suppose, your word. And this piece of writing, here, now. So that when this anecdote has faded away and been replaced by new self-mythologies, it will remain in posterity. A testament to the value of writing.) (You have apparently become the kind of writer who espouses the singular wonder of writing.)
There are other things in life besides writing. Sleep, for example. And good conversation, the kind that makes you sad to leave, as if you were being pulled away from the arms of a lover by this or that obligation. The moments when you see and feel seen, disalienated, that is, not locked in, not grasping for an unknowable other. Food is not one of these things. We are condemned to it.
My friend Kehinde and I were walking in Prospect Park talking about our shared neuroses when she said, “The thing about food is that once you eat it, there’s nothing left.” It felt utterly profound in the moment. And it is, if you understand the feeling.
I want to be with all my loved ones. All the time. I want to speak truthfully and completely. I want to know who they are.
These are the second and third reasons I write in the “I.” To stand in my subjecthood means to recognize theirs, and yours. It is to convince myself that I have things to say, to give myself a reason to eat, and be in the world, even when it is difficult.
It is to allow for the possibility of you, not you, distant me, but you, friend, reader, loved one, whom I can never fully know, you, who struggles bravely with everything life throws at you, all your past and current traumas, you who I hope continues to try to eat, and be in the world.
