View source for Lipton’s Journal/January 27, 1955/316

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But what is also interesting is that I welcomed the depression. It was reassuring in a way, it was almost pleasant to return to the old neurotic state which I think signifies for me the state of work, hard work, depressed work, but of course honorable work. I don’t know whether to take this journal seriously. At times I think I’m getting into wonderful things, other times I just wonder if I’m losing my grip and bathing in clichés and other people’s ideas. 

We went to a party last night at Malaquais’,{{LJ:Malaquais}} and in the cab I said to Adele{{LJ:Adele}} in a very profound voice, “You know, when people go away on vacations, it’s not a casual act—it’s of deep significance. They’re hoping that something will happen which changes their lives.” And Adele after a moment of shock at the seriousness I gave it, said, “But, of course, darling, everybody knows that.” Perhaps it is just that she has known it all her life, but I was startled and upset. It had seemed such a perception to me. I had been thinking of the peculiar frozen look almost all people have when they come into a resort hotel and their baggage surrounds them with the stamp of the novice. And how relieved they are when they find friends, and the terrible depression under the surface if they cannot cozy up to new acquaintances. Like a repetition of the childhood trauma-adventure of moving to a new neighborhood.  	          

Anyway, for the first time in many weeks I had a lot to drink at Malaquais’. Not to excess but four or five ryes on the rocks which I enjoyed. What I really enjoyed was the old neurotic tension of a party with its fatigues, its aggressions, its enthusiasms. The old depression with the feeling of “force” beneath it, of ''masculinity'', was reassuring. We came home, had one of our enjoyable mock-spats for Adele drunk is always full of beans, and fell asleep. I woke up about four hours later, and had a deep perception which I can barely remember, but it made me realize the beauty in myself and in Adele, and I decided that the extraordinary contradiction of my personality, the saint in morality, the potential psychopath sexually was what gave me my strength as a writer. Sort of: the greater the contradiction in a person, the wider the range of his potential experience and intuitions. Only it was very beautiful as I saw it, so beautiful that I woke Adele up and we made love which was very pleasant, and then I almost fell asleep but didn’t, and finally got up with four hours of sleep, and have been moving slowly all day, feeling drained, or more exactly drawn to too fine a pitch. Part of it is getting off [[w:Seconal|Seconal]] which I had taken three nights in a row. Anyway, the obvious occurs to me which is that {{LJ:S}} forces contain a great deal of their strength because they conserve the body too, or give us the illusion that they do. When the {{LJ:H}} is open and riding for several days in a row there is exaltation but there is also terror—one feels close to death all the time. S gives me feelings of depression and force, as I have written above.

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[[Category:January 27, 1955]]