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Lipton’s Journal/February 21, 1955/641: Difference between revisions
Lipton’s Journal/February 21, 1955/641 (view source)
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But to get back, tears express a love-rage substitute. As a practical matter one can{{ins|not!!}} always fuck, one cannot always fight, when one wishes to. So one finds substitutes, less satisfying but more safe. Tears are dangerous but necessary—dangerous because they are still close to what was denied, they keep it open; necessary because they are a body expression. Tearless people get cancer, people who deny the soft side of themselves (always relatively to the distance gone—a compassionate person who could have been a saint can also get cancer, although its less likely if he or she start refusing compassion). | But to get back, tears express a love-rage substitute. As a practical matter one can{{ins|not!!}} always fuck, one cannot always fight, when one wishes to. So one finds substitutes, less satisfying but more safe. Tears are dangerous but necessary—dangerous because they are still close to what was denied, they keep it open; necessary because they are a body expression. Tearless people get cancer, people who deny the soft side of themselves (always relatively to the distance gone—a compassionate person who could have been a saint can also get cancer, although its less likely if he or she start refusing compassion). | ||
The principle in all this can be taken from a profound line by John Dewey: “A bad man is one, who no matter how {{ins|good}} he has been, is getting worse, and a good man is one, who no matter how bad he has been is getting better.”{{refn|The exact quote is: “The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better.” {{NM}} adapts the line in “[[The White Negro]],” as follows: “In the instinctive dialectic through which the hipster perceives his experience . . . one is forever moving forward into more or retreating into less.”}} So for the sick man, the powerful man, the sexual man, the compassionate man, etc. One gets to be less of anything good—the compassionate, the sexual, even the developing of one’s personal power as opposed to the dominating and manipulating of others—one gets to be less at the expense of one’s health. | The principle in all this can be taken from a profound line by [[w:John Dewey|John Dewey]]: “A bad man is one, who no matter how {{ins|good}} he has been, is getting worse, and a good man is one, who no matter how bad he has been is getting better.”{{refn|The exact quote is: “The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better.” {{NM}} adapts the line in “[[The White Negro]],” as follows: “In the instinctive dialectic through which the hipster perceives his experience . . . one is forever moving forward into more or retreating into less.”}} So for the sick man, the powerful man, the sexual man, the compassionate man, etc. One gets to be less of anything good—the compassionate, the sexual, even the developing of one’s personal power as opposed to the dominating and manipulating of others—one gets to be less at the expense of one’s health. | ||
So in sex you either screw your own wife better, or you screw other women, or you do both, or else you get sick. Most men live in the condition of doing all four things half-assesdly and so live in a state of doubt and conviction, depression and excitement, joy and gloom. But that’s better than killing oneself with cancer, asthma, or one of the others. You have to grow or else carry more for remaining the same. | So in sex you either screw your own wife better, or you screw other women, or you do both, or else you get sick. Most men live in the condition of doing all four things half-assesdly and so live in a state of doubt and conviction, depression and excitement, joy and gloom. But that’s better than killing oneself with cancer, asthma, or one of the others. You have to grow or else carry more for remaining the same. | ||