The Diary of Zachary Michael Davis — Volume IIA
D.—
Saturday comes, and one has the tendency to look forward to a rest day, but it could be that one needs no rest—or can afford no rest—or doesn’t know how to do it right. Yesterday Mr. Stockton called me back during JOU and my phone was on, so I got to ask some additional questions. And I have intended to call Maria Ortiz tonight—and how could I have trouble interviewing Maria? But why say interview? That’s formal, and I do not have trouble talking in informal situations, do I? Say “speak with.”
Saturday mornings can seem to go quickly, quickly. All of Saturday can seem to go very quickly.
I seem to have lost my planner.
Today I have attended xross country practice and I have biked to school and the city library. I retrieved some items from 2179, peeked in the windows of 502, and dropped off Night of January 16th.
Also, after practice but before going to the school and library, I gave myself a long masturbation session. And what did that (straight as it was) do for my situation—now?
One abhors the proposition of placing controls on someone “for her own good”—for each individual is entitled to determine for herself that good. This is liberty. But people—some of them—can stagnate in liberty. They can fall to their own baser instincts. A solution to this could be contractual controls—people pay coaches to yell at them, and such. But why should stagnation be? By what evasion can we allow ourselves to think This is bad, but I want it? Shouldn’t I only need to mutter tanstaafl to myself—and get up? Because one wants to be free and to live well.
SO Saturday comes, and one must use this time to do homework, to clean up the wreckage of the weekdays (one’s room being the least of it) to build on projects. And one realizes this—one realizes many things about ends and means—but one hurts, and one wants. And one could use a rest—but didn’t one already take it? One is liable to forgive oneself—how much?
One has to complete writings from obligation.
Yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
ADDENDUM—“Eirrant”— What if I don’t call Maria tonight? This would be so repetitive, I know—I want to change, for the better—I keep saying that, and I mean it, in my fashion, and my fashion can change—I can make it conform to reason someday soon. It is so late in the day. Concerning my news story, I need to write out what I have found out so far in story form. I have other homework to do. Getting started can be so hard—to some. But I have not been too bad—I have done good things; I have been able, and am, in my unfolding fashion—is this not all public knowledge? Able, that’s right—you can pin it in red to my shirt. I have thought of making a shirt that says tanstaafl in red or maroon italic Times New Roman. Labor Day is to be observed Monday, so there is no school—and there will be no school for students on Friday, either. Things for The Page are due Wednesday. I need to finish all my homework, and clean this place up. I want to make another two xomics [before] Tuesday. I want to make that shirt. And I will have to make telephone call or calls for JOU. One has the tendency to look forward to a rest day—and one needs rest, to be sure. But most of the time I do not manage to do it right. A problem could be that there are many things that on the face of it seem worth doing or worth doing for x time, but really when one thinks about it, other priorities should take precedence. Because the fact is that browsing Wikipedia articles about British monarchs takes time, and time is one thing I often feel I don’t have enough of. So often I feel like I need hours and hours to prepare for ints, and then I sqaunder the time I do have. I am scheduled to meet with Josh Meltzer tomorrow at 1430 at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. One can take time for the Diaristic dispatches.
Saturdays seem fast, and one is inclined to remember how vastly important it is to get up early—even on weekends. I feel so much better when I rise early—I feel like I have more time when I have done so many things and yet it is not even afternoon! It could be strange—getting up early but also getting one’s sleep simply means that one has simply time-shifted one’s hours of sleep—one is not actually gaining awareness time. But it can almost feel like it. It could seem as if time awake at 0630 is somehow more valuable than time awake at 1145. This could have something to do with morale—when I find it is afternoon and yet I have not accomplished much, it is very disheartening! Because noon is only six hours (!) from 1800, which I suppose is a good time to make ints calls. To be sure, one can get up at 0810 and still accomplish things before noon—even with a xross country practice (which, perhaps strangely, doesn’t count as an accomplishment in this context) blocked out in that morning. But it is harder. But then, why should morale matter? Isn’t that the point? To press on in the face of all low morale? But then, if one is pressing on, one would seem to have good morale as a matter of definition. So, resolved, I shall endevour to adjust my sleep cycle in light of this. But what of all my past resolutions? If they had all held, what a superhuman I would be now, is it not so? And how many novels—mixed numbers are okay here—would I have written? But all lamentations cannot change the past—nor can they change the future except by inciting positive action.
What if I hired Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff to be a “life coach” of sorts? I would pay her to yell at me to stop being so lazy. I would tell her what I want to do and what I am having trouble with and she would call me and question and taunt me about it all. We could work well together, she and I—in context.
What would Ayn Rand think of Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff? And what does Kathy think of Ayn Rand?
It makes me almost angry that I don’t know where my planner is. I want that planner.
One looks about one’s messy room, and within one’s messy heart. One recalls references, and cross-references, and oaths broken, and responsibilities shirked, and self-clusterf*ks, and dreams seemingly broken, as if not wanting to live after all. But you get this one life. I get this one delightfully male body, and we are all left here in this world to build, with no directions and seemingly (hopefully?) no Authority. (This would mean we make our own New Hong Kong dollars, or am I sick of referencing—and heresy?)
SO what if I am—for a time—miserable in a shadow I caused, languishing in the squalor of my own evasion? For my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted!
Here’s to heroines and knights of NaNoWriMo,
Zack M. Davis
1710
SECOND ADDENDUM—“Eirrogance”— Why should it be this way? Why do I let things get this late on Saturdays, with little or no thing to show for it? To be sure, it is never too late to change—one is not to despair and waste even more time. Oh! For ENG we are having outside reading! Now, shouldn’t I read some absurd number of pages—while fufilling all my other duties, and doing xomics, and writing my own fiction? Now of course I should. I am intelligent, in my—I’m pretty smart, I mean, as my Diary can show. And have I not also thought about completing that GOV assignment I missed, to show Mr. Bremer on Tuesday, even if it turns out he does not accept late work? I have so thought—and one recalls unctuous prophecies signed in yearbooks past (“Memories have never been so heavy”) and one recalls that one must fufill them! Once I wrote a story about someone else’s fictional character Holden Caulfield so quickly and so expertly. But what of my protagonists, and the “proxy-protagonist” here in this true story, Dearest Reader? This life here is real, it exists, it is not fictional, and Sophie’s World is understood to be notwithstanding. Lives are on the line, as all lives are always on some line, and—“we have been on many thousand lines”. But a human has to find her own, or perhaps make it, rather. I have considered axioms and essentials—that I might better curse essentialists, and words, to be sure, can have more than one meaning. Oh! It’s not too late! Oh! If only someone understood—but maybe they do, about some things. I had aimed to discover something, and aim still—and with so few months until I reach the age of majority, and being yet already still a man, in my fashion, is it not yet time to fire? Ah, but it is time, and maybe it always has been, and the moment was always waiting for me to come, and it is jacked back into a position of great potential energy in the primed air, for that all this was just a prelude to—something heroic and fun. Now—why should a human choose a weaponry metaphor, of all things? But I have aimed, and one is to know thy enemy—well. One is to think, and to act, and to know. And all sampling doesn’t make fine art less so. I have thought, written my sights into place. I have trained these delightful limbs into their curves, great muscled curves and lines, straight as they are, and I recall—I have played games with words or readers; I have played many games in this life, and only some were worth playing. But now I am older, and I am wiser, and I was always at least a little smart. And so I am developing a sort of “game theory.” Saturdays move, as all days move, fast, as we are fastly bound to each in turn—don’t I see? Has it not been too long to not for me—FIRE!
“Could I make it any more obvious?”
We’ll always have sex,
yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
1909
THIRD ADDENDUM—“Eir Quality”— I have talked with Nadia on the telephone. Maybe it is as if there could be so much I might want to say to someone, but decency forbids. Now, what is one to think about taboos? One may want to discuss certain topics more freely, but were they to be on the table as any other topic, would they still hold such a special place in our hearts? Even a [secular], rationalistic society is to have its elements of “sacredness,” yes? But too we must remember that community standards can have little place in our hearts—there is no emotional coercion; we cannot let ourselves be shocked because we think everyone else will be shocked.
Nadia says it is better to think about the things you can still do rather than the things you haven’t done. But in night on some ruined days it could seem better to throw in the towel and go to sleep early if one can. One will swear, on these nights, while turning off the electric lights, that this will be the last such day in the world. Such oaths are often broken, but—perhaps not always. Not after a time when one has seen something enough times, and understands that which must be understood.
Proud of me? For what?
The kinds of things I say to Nadia feel false, they feel to be not-me. Or maybe I am just inarticulate. I want to filter one consistent image of myself into my daily action—I want to establish my character in the world, to all humans—as someone creative and intelligent and passionate and calm and self-controlled.
And I have not done any JOU writing today, and this is bad business. Today has been one of those bad days that don’t feel bad at all—one simply knows that they are bad when one considers the effect of their vacuum on the days ahead. Our calandars present days as running from left to right, and down a line for the new week, and so on rightward, but—“days ahead.” Hmm. What if one had a sort of three-dimensional calandar on one’s computer, that actually depicted future days as being actually ahead, in front of the user? Transparencies? The imagination is wonderful.
I should have something to show for this day! But I do. I have these words, do I not? But this is not an acceptable situation. It is late enough that I just would go to sleep, I guess, and promise to do better next day. I don’t really want to see Josh tomorrow—I haven’t accomplished enough today to make our 1430 meeting seem as free as it should be. And I should use the telephone when I get back …
But it is a three-day weekend. SO while I have not performed well on this Saturday, if Saturday-of-the-heart is to be considered the next-to-last day of the weekend, then tomorrow is Saturday-of-the-heart—Saturday reborn, you might say. But the day is still Sunday, and the situation leading into this Sunday is regretable. Now it is funny that I should have these laments about not accomplishing enough today—on the Labor Day weekend! And I have spent a lot of time doing the Diary writing today—some would consider this ironic, I suppose.
Do not mistake me—I have “fired,” it is just that with the bullet time the target won’t be reached until early tomorrow morning. And then—all good things.
There are great stories I want to write, relationships I want to have. “It’s so cool that you can do that, that your body can do that.” There will need to be a break with the past.
What would Ms. Gunnison think of all this? Ms. Reeves-Hampton? Mr. Bremer? Kathy? Nadia? Rina Breakstone? I am curious only …
Some things I chose, and some things I didn’t. The imagination is wonderful.
Here’s to the break,
yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
2108
D.—
Chief Justice Rehnquist has died.
I associated with Josh Meltzer in Berkeley. I returned The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to him and also I lent him Quarantine. He lent me Stranger in a Strange Land. He gave me some CDs he burned. I got to talk to Alyssa on his cell phone. We got pizza at Fat Slice. We bought CDs together—I got Fefe Dobson and I owe him one dollar. I have decided to mail it to him. I have cleaned my room. I did a T-shirt.
What have I accomplished? What have I done? I have had my hopes—and have them still. You have to make it come to you. One must act. You get what you pay for. One must “dig deep” within oneself—and be driven. Driven to win some culture war, or triumph in the shadow of all barriers. “We’ll always have Paris.” And I have lamented so much, and it could all seem so useless and my will could seem so powerless—but for the future. Because there will be—there will have to be—the break with the past. Something has to change, if I decree it to be so and I have a will, and I do so decree—and I too have a will. All my quotes and references, all my equivocations and lamentations here—they lead to something great, and not at all far away. But you knew that already. One is not to be scared. One is not to run away. You get what you put in the effort for.
“Your world looks so enchanting”—what do I have to offer?
This—and much, much more.
Just you wait. All of you. For all poets—well. And all doubters—break.
I have been stupid, but my song is not,
Zack M. Davis
D.—
Feelings can sweep over one, spurred by music, perhaps, and there exist great novels. One can be moved by the beauty of everything and this mystery of feeling, and the bastards [sic] don’t even know! Are there feelings that only exist in luxury? One had aimed to disover something, and one lazes and moans, and—then. Doesn’t one need to focus? Everything in this world is so—complicated, and you have to show them (defined as—?) but how? One has jobs to do, and one has all these questions—nothing beautiful can be fragile overmuch, can it? And how fragile am I, this man?—then. Sometimes one might use the phrase “hopelessly complicated” but the glorious intricacy of our minds is our strength, is it not? That our complexity could make some sense of the complexity of everything else, and too of ourselves—but all sense? What is our goal to be? We are not goddesses, to be sure, nor do we wish to be, in what may or may not be judged as our finer moments. And these senses and these desires must be managed properly and carefully if some of anything we want more are to come to the “fruition.” But who is the “we,” and who are these bastards [sic] that we are fighting, and how different are we all after all? But one of the things hoped for, in many moments, was that there would be no “after all” after all—that this universe would go on forever and people would keep living and do great things, and they would keep advancing and expanding and living—and that the universe would never close down on them. We want someone to go on after we are dead; we want history to exist in the minds of—humans. And I am thinking that there must be a method to retain finer senses and yet to not be so fragile—to harden oneself against the world without hardening one’s heart—as it were. I am only so intelligent and so strong, and I may try to outline things that I know to be very important—but I get as if lost and hurt, as I were. What is the tone of one kind of writing I have in mind, that is both unscientific and irreligious? And of what value is it? We cannot rely on our whims; we must stand by our reason. But what does reason say? And what does it say about feelings? Time can seem to move slowly by the hour and quickly by the minute, and the day can just be allowed to—drip away. But one is not to allow this, nor is one to allow one’s life to drip away similarly—but how? We are not mystics; we do not forsake reality to make it over “in our own image.” Even if we are not sure of our image (this is not necessarily so) it exists in us by definition, and we know it. But if we are not—mystics—shouldn’t we speak more clearly? What would Mr. Pinker say, and do we care, and why? There has been a rebellion, of a sort, that one has wanted to stage—but such things are staged by living well and serving as a counterexample—and also perhaps creating some great fiction in the image of the ideal. And does not living well preclude too much of—this? What was “creative nonfiction” and how are we to interpret it? How are we to judge this—tailspinning, perhaps, and feeling certain things at what could be the most inopportune times? Where is my lift? What must I do to regain it? I back my tenderness with stength, that’s policy, and I do have strength—somewhere here—where has my planner gone? It is not as if there is a steel separation between “virtues of living” and “virtues of feeling”—it must not be, if the universe is something like what it seems to be. We are not forced to choose between a world of dying, whimpering artists and a world of healthy, sneering brutes—it is not so; we cannot allow it. Nor can we allow any—human to hack into our files and delete the nots from our sentences. There is not much to be said about a—human so burdened with tender feelings that she does not manage to do much—save expression, which would have to be mark’d finally as supplementary—in its fashion. They can be only false, the dichotomies between “feeling” and “living,” because the one is dependent on the other. Can certain things only be felt in luxury? That no one but—princesses or such in towers, with servants waiting outside the locked chamber door, could be plagued in the heart so that they would lie around on their silk down bed comtemplating the mysteries of life and emotion, and painting paintings, and waiting for some prince or such to come along and cure something—while outside that stone-rimm’d window there is a whole civilization (some would call it a kingdom) throbbing with life? And the hours bleed by for princes or such in towers—but what of them that are only half-nobility? They that have their towers, and their paintings—and a deadline [sic], drawn in blood in a lost planner? What are they doing, what should they contemplate, on what should they and do they focus their respective minds on? What could they be doing at half past one in the afternoon? One recalls (or recalls an imagining of) a (to liberate a phrase) sense of life brought on by disaster nearby. It could be described as a realization, a waking-up from an early afternoon nap in one’s metaphorical tower. A realization that this is life and we must both think and act, paint and build. We have pondered, if never fully articulated or followed very far at all towards its end, some prelude to theories of synthesis and opposite, and metacategory. There is no reason one cannot be a creepy-quirky artist following a calling (whatever that is) and also do one’s job. There can be no reason, but one has trouble—separating one’s time, and one hurts more because of this, and gets twisted, and hides, hides in the tower, that no one would see! But my supply pantry, it is always full, one realizes, and yet, it is not because of me!
We have wanted to scream that we are neither of you, that I am what I am! I can work and play and create great art! I can understand in this body the words Fefe Dobson sings, and Alyssa need not have assured me of what she does not think—because there was—no relation, and she didn’t even see. But do I really believe this, any of this; could I just be siezing on an issue, to set me apart? There could be so much I want to explain and understand and I just write—almost mystically—while the day goes by. And I can take so many rest days in a row, needing more time to figure all this out—more time amongst my words on thought and mutual exclusivity—more time to wallow and shake in my [sensitivity]. What am I afraid of? Why do I struggle? Why do I act as if I can only write free expression, when I can write—that which I set my mind to? I set this mind, and the day creeps on. Oh! One has had enough of vacation! Can’t one break with the past, leave this sensitivity behind—for the needed time—and shift, as one chooses, between states of mind? But why should states of mind be reckoned as opposed? I can hold this thought, and this concept, and this ideal—all of them. Isn’t it so?
What is it, then? Why do I get so scared? Why should there be “mental disturbances”—why should we recognize the category? You don’t have to be batty to be a passionate writer. You don’t have to be crass to be functional—to make it without a patron. We are not “children, but of a larger growth”—I am a man, “and can present for inspection” my practical works. I can, but will I?
What is it, then? Is it that Kathy has free will, but I don’t?
Will one have the time to go back and edit? What if one left out a word not? A disaster—but I misuse this word, this world, so far. What is a waste of time? How can I tell? Life has no edit button, and surely many works such as this have been passed over—and why should anyone be bound, loved, unconditionally? We are to meet conditions—we are to choose what we are to do and be. Kathy can, so too can we.
What would it mean, to save a file, close it—and forsake for a time the sense of life that produced it? Or for all time—because more than one sense can create art—and I have always heretofore had the wrong sense for the full living of life; this I have sensed. All printers—all poets …
What is left, then? Is it too late in the day; am I just to prepare for the morrow? But is this not too disaster? What did I tell Father? What am I to tell him? How can any of them possibly understand? But wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t it the whole point that they don’t understand and it does not matter because I will just play on, doing my works, never afraid, and never lazy? But I can get so afraid! And I have done so little! How can one work it all out?
But one must try. One must not—suicide. One must try. It gets to be so late in the day. Is the record sealed? Have I been altogether true? I could want for a rest, or to drown uncertainty in a story, but there is work to do—and I have already filled out my reading log for the day. Should one try to relax? What would Kathy say?
One thinks perhaps one should try to relax, so one can work. But haven’t I relaxed? Have I not enjoyed recreation—have I not tried to put out my feelings? Or did that just make me tenser, more tender?
The world will go on. And it seems very likely I am to hang on to graduate—in what condition? Why did anyone ever think they could help me feel better? Should I not be left to sink or swim? I am no longer a child—I have grown. Tanstaafl: I will act as I can, and I will splendor or I will suffer. Even in suffering, I have small prides—I can even take pride in reading fiction. I can read pages …
Now, what should scare me? That Father should be right? That all you have to do is pick up the telephone, and my not doing so is a mark on me, showing my cowardice and foolheadedness? Why should it hurt when anyone says anything? Shouldn’t I tell all? But wouldn’t that include telling weakness?
Frailty, thy name is “frailty.” We knew this.
And my name?
Zack M. Davis
ADDENDUM—“Serious”— I could be a humorless individualist. Why was anything funny in serious matters of philosophy and why people think that which they think? Life could be dead serious and also wonderful—and it could be that one need not balance reason with ideological purity because there was no conflict. There is a purity about righteous anger—I should remember this anger in times of doubt and falling. And if all these feelings were testosterone, I would accept it, were it true, and it may be, and may be not—and we humans have developed science. And Maria likes to talk, I think, and surely I like to write, so could I not fit all this together, and yard work, too? One must stand, and fire, and one might like to take a shower—and one might be able to afford it, too, for that one has will and can pound the telephones. Yard work is moved to the next week-end and one can hyphenate and may feel the “rage to master” the craft of writing. One will put in hours in front of screens—and not sleep during November, for NaNoWriMo allows no slumber. I do aim to bring Father home As, and Kathy could come to like my novels in time—the time it takes to write and publish them, it could be many moons—but I have left moons abundant, barring the unforseen, and I do so aim to bar it, by expanding the range of that which I can see. There is the rage to defeat one’s ideological enemies and master writing—the Diary, the novel—and the news story and I have been so sinful! Are we really in control of ourselves? If “mods” become available—will we use them? It is all in our command—for now, and for evermore, surely, if we are not mistaken. One feels the rage to master, one feels so many things, and thinks of heroines, and [mouths] a few lines from the first song of a newly-acquired CD. Oh! Yes, sex exists, and [forgetting] all sexists, we are so eternally grateful for it! That I can move in this, and feel in this. Yes! I have acted in malice and despair, but can I not cope[?] Are there not no evil thoughts—except one? One is going to have to focus and use the longer ranges—and all chemicals may interact to make me so, but if so, I am the interactions, and this doesn’t make the fact of me any less so, for it was always so, and I am—well. So I have fluctuated, and acted sinfully, but can I not take a shower, this one more luxury, and then—blow away, and shape all this to my making? This is—hubris? Conceit; is this life? This is my life, and despite all sleep it is real, and my style is what it is, and ev’rybody plays this. One must take bravery, and though all cowardice here has been a part of me—I can cast it away. I cast away all sin and would cast away all weakness, but for that weakness is a lack and not an entity. So I will build strength in the blasphemous void that is my weakness. I do not care what any of them think; I cannot let myself care overmuch—because caring like that hurts, and hurt gets in the way of that which needs to be done. Knowing a feeling is irrational may not instantly banish it—but if you really believe it, it may help. I will make it help. What had I imagined someone saying? I’m an insufferable bastard—and you need me. Well, don’t we need Paris, from Gilmore Girls? She is driven, as I must be driven, and one can allow no regret—it doesn’t help, the past cannot be undone, and time asymmetry—is the law, and cannot be shunned. All blood, all prices, couldn’t we call anyone, for any reason? But then, would I make multiple calls tonight, because I do not care what they think? But I do care—somewhat, just a little. Am I to rebel against my every instinct—even when it would be unwise to do so—simply because they are my instincts, and progressive thinking humans can allow no things as instinct? It must all be conscious and controlled; this is the rage for control—of myself. How could I be sad? We can allow no hesitance, no ambivalence, none. So perhaps we do have feelings, and they are not about to go away at a strong word from ourselves. It is simply one more issue to be dealt with, as there are many issues. This is just the problem of tying our actions to anchor logic. One more logistical [sic] problem to be solved by the gallant humans. And if we find no solution? Do the best you can—and hold on. One is not to cry at facts that are of the metaphysically given—including the fact that sometimes one may not be able to stop oneself from crying. If one does not like the metaphysically given, one is to work around as one can. If the given strikes at one’s precieved identity, one is to figure one’s identity accordingly—in accordance with that which needs to be accounted for, and recognized. And all truth must be recognized. The “mind-body problem” was just like any other.
And—if there could be no such thing as control? One must think.
You will need me,
Zack M. Davis
SECOND ADDENDUM—“Color Charge”— I have taken a shower. Feel a little better—I suppose. Not everyone has these issues. I’m glad. Surely I will graduate high school, will I not? People would be sure to write nice things in my yearbook, as people always do. I am not wearing any clothes. What’s wrong with me? The world, to be sure, would go on. And I aim to give them a good novel for them to buy—and more, yes? How could talking with anyone help someone’s problems, I mean really help like solving them, not help like providing a distraction? It is degrading to be pitied—and sympathy, what is that? “I feel your pain”—no one should feel my pain; no one should hurt because I hurt, because that is really quite needlessly increasing the amount of pain in the world. But all this mental disturbance was needless to begin with—wasn’t it? What if—in regard to emotions—saying it really did help make it so? Would that be insulting or liberating? It has been asked of those who hurt—“Why don’t you just snap out of it?” And I think many “experts” in the field say that they can’t snap out of it; that’s the point; it’s a condition. But I think they are working off the wrong theory of control. If those who hurt are not to be considered responsible for what they feel and think and do, how could anybody else? People who are having problems should just snap out of it. And if they don’t, that is to be tallied as their fault and their responsibility. If we stopped trying to save people from theirselves, might not the world be a happier place? Those who really love life and are ready for it, would live it, and those who didn’t like it, or couldn’t handle it, would just pass on and leave the world to those who were their betters—certainly in some respects. When one does not complete one’s homework, perhaps one is not to beg for forgiveness, and plead depression. One is to face the music (the “music” one has created by one’s actions, not one’s themesong, or other original literal songs—or Fefe Dobson, &c.) and that duly-elected firing squad. Maybe it is just too late and I can release the ints pressure from myself for the rest of the day. I will just get to thinking rather than evasion—and tomorrow I may be ready. Is this a forfeit? How badly will I regret days like today, and this encroaching humility? One is only as strong as one is at a moment—or is one? Are these values fixed, or do they vary with my free will? But I had decided that the determinism-indeterminism thing was not to be reckoned a problem at all. It’s a universe of liberty—I can act as I will, and others will judge me as they will, and if I have failed to serve the ideology well—then that was what I did, if not what I could have done—whatever that is interpreted to mean in light of philosophical problems. Who have I fail’d, and how badly? How sexy is this body? It could be that if a successful, happy person decides to go into darkness, she can do it, but if someone who has fallen off the track wants to go down Kathy’s path, he will have much trouble returning to the normal world. What is treason? Maybe interpersonal contact—of a kind—could help. There is nothing wrong with that sort of drive. What do you call something that almost everyone understands—but so few understand the way I understand it? What if I have just been lazy? Why don’t I just snap out of it? —ZMD, 1735
THIRD ADDENDUM—“Air Press”— It could be that I am admiring Kathy’s fine powers of judgement. Why would any self-respecting woman want to deal with this?
One wonders how one should respond to the question: “Are you feeling okay?” Perhaps one should say in response: “I cannot answer that,” or, better: “I will not answer that.”
Does Kathy ever feel sad? I hope not. She is strong. —ZMD, 1824
FOURTH ADDENDUM—“Ace Post”— Father says he can tell I am under my work. I am, of course, but why does he think he understands? Journalism is the only class that drives me crazy. I am thinking of telling Coach I will not attend xross country practice tomorrow. I wrote a little in TCE. I want writing this story, and others, to truly make up for all the wrongness of the madness I suffer. If anything can. “Glorious madness”? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? But mind you—I am not scratching my head. Why don’t I just snap out of it? Maybe if there was an Official Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff Fanclub, I would be member-in-good-standing and proxy-vice-president-in-charge-of-operations. But it could be that I make big symbols of things for poetic effect—for a show, to show to readers something else about my mind. Do I make sense? Why can’t I just snap out of my disturbances? Am I still disturbed now? Or am I just playing out the day out of habit, only to wake up late the next day, and—then. No one should try to comfort me, I think—I am to sink or swim, yes? But what did I only construe? How suicidal is it (if there can be degrees of “suicidality”) for me to not be working on my PHY lab report or writing my news story? How long have I been procrastinating this? I am so bad in some ways—and yet, can I let myself say these disheartening things which will surely only hurt my performance and make me worse? But that question presupposes a terrible answer to another, viz., Who is in control, me, or my feelings? Terrible, because it is wrong? Or terrible because it is terrifying and bodes badly for all hopes? But of this question terribly answered one might ask: was there any opposition? Opposition, between the two terms? Or opposition of myself against my feelings, a noble rebellion for all reason and control—and a sort of intrapersonal “popular sovereignty”? It could be I am on some sort of key fatal brink—and what would Lizzie think? I miss my planner. What was my banner? How late? Whose date? What if I had been spelling her (which, dummy?) name wrong all along? But we all must go on, somehow. There have been so many suicides in my family—what if there is some genetic marker for not feeling well for no reason? But the gene would be a sort of reason—with no reason behind it at all, if we are to understand terms, and all. What is Greg Bear’s daughter—Alexandra, I’m sure—like in person? Or where have I made a mistake in my Diary? And when in my life? How much space-time correction fluid would I have to use to amend—improve—fix this life—and how could I apply it? What would I write over it, and how would I do that? And why am I writing this at this time on this night? How is this worth the time, when it is just some superfluous documentation? Surely there exist (straight!) couples having great sex with mutual individual recognition and respect. SO I am happy for them. But I am not happy—am I? Am I having so much fun bitching [sic] about how bruised and hurt I feel in my poor little (straight!) heart? Bitching and whining about my tender feelings and my irrational fears—bah! How long can this outrage go on? There exist those who would make masturbation metaphors, but I find the topic unsuitable for metaphor. And what do I go meta for? Puns only? Or was a WRITER ever then not feeling “horny”? I would invite Cathy Young to my birthday party—but it could be that there can be no more parties. It’s only a year! You’ll have to endure! Everyone—but do they? And wasn’t the proposed main solution to this seemingly coming Autumn of Nonglorious Madness the heartfelt recognition (all recognition) that it does not matter? No one remembers—let them battle over you. And isn’t Maria such a friendly girl? How much complaining can I do in a Diary about these fragile feelings? Should I not just be brave and bold and pay my heart no mind (as it were)? This is good writing, but in context, and considering this is real, what does this add up to? Perhaps one is even allowed to feel a few irrational feelings (though one would rather not) and even write tortured prose about the ordeal, but one is not to coddle them, baby them, or they will cry still, and keep one up all night, depriving one of one’s dreams—in more ways than one! SO at what point is all this whining, crying, complaining, lamenting, pleading to be reckoned a form of—“journalistic masturbation”?
As always, Kathy would know. Andcetera.
In trust,
Zack M. Davis
FIFTH ADDENDUM—“Arc Pica”— Do I really have anything more to say? What do I need, or whom? How can I look Ms. Gunnison or Laura or Ashley in the eye? What have I done to myself? How can anyone respect me? There can be anodyne in fiction. But the scholastic year … —ZMD, 2249
D.—
It could be that writing in my Diary does not soothe my worries—all it does is get them on the record. But certainly one is to record things.
Nicole says not to worry. We have talked, and shared mints.
I am to be busy. I have been scared. What’s wrong?
I finished a new TFAoRSS episode today, 11 September—or are there nearly always tweaks one can make to any image? Yesterday, 10 September, I raced in the Earlybird Invitational—the xross country team’s first meet of the season.
There are plenty of books for one to read. One has so much to worry about—one’s story and all The Page, and (one might as well mention) the nature of all things. But the stress of The Page is what wears on one—detached philosophical issues can only be so troubling (if they were ever really troubling at all) in the face of daily life and all one’s troubling reactions to it.
Nicole has reminded me that it is not productive to feel bad about feeling bad.
When one feels one has to do a lot of thinking to prepare for the next day, and also needs to get up early the next day, at what time is one to go to bed? What alarms are to be rigged? What can one allow oneself to do—and what is one actually going to do? That I would mean it when I make a title indicating change-for-the-better.
How guilty am I of evasion?
Electronic lines of communication have been opened between Caitlin Casey and me.
So what if I don’t know anything about love or women, and all were alien? People have made fun of “stupid intellectuals” who don’t see—that which is so plain. But a human is unique, one should think. Or isn’t it that each one thinks differently? Diversity is to be reckoned a blessing, but how are we to know what is true? Problems exist. And what of my problems have I hid in layers of abstractions? Or—comes the inevitable flip—what abstractions have I hid in layers of problems? What can you say about people who don’t want to go to sleep, because they are afraid of what they must do—in the morning—at school? But one must sleep. One is not to crash; one is to plan. But what do you say to people who are too frozen in anxiety to plan? How do you explain to them?
Wasn’t there supposed to be a kind of thrill in fear, a liberating sense of aliveness and danger?
Didn’t someone once say something about “working within the system”? It would seem that having undesireable emotions is, for now, a part of the system. But what governs the desire, if not emotion? “Tempered by reason” would seem to be a queer phrase.
Notions of universal justice may offer little consolation to the guilty. But that would be the point. The only solution that can be left to them is to get innocent fast. The past cannot be undone—except for the past from this moment on. Not to suggest I am a fan of the “block time”—if we understand terms.
What’s comfort? Why do we want it so badly? One requires sleep—one wishes for more time. But didn’t one already have so much time for the thinking? This, the present that is constantly moving forward, so many times I have dedicated it to be the end of an error—the starting point of a new era. Now how could anyone who fashions eirself to be an intellectual be so stupid as to not understand that now means now? There is no more time for “just another minute”—to be sure, I am likely to have many years ahead of me, but the rules of play stay rather invariant. Someone who does not write fiction very often is not likely to become a fiction writer.
I am so worried and scared. But you get what you pay for.
Zack M. Davis,
0008 Monday
D.—
The Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff eira [sic] is over. Now is the Dark Ages—or, Finding Yourself. I have been writing a lot in my little “redbook” during school days.
On the whole, I think I have been feeling remarkably well lately. Or dare I say it unqualified? It is not that things are great, but they are really not bad. Or rather we may be said to be speaking of myself rather than the things, as circumstances for me are much as they always were. It is as if I am getting closer to curing myself—so to speak. I’m not so terrified. I am not so horrible. It is as if—I am growing up. Like philosophical developments beget the behavioral, in time. Or are some things a simple numerical function of age? But this could fail to explain some of my contemporaries in comparison to me, in comparison to—don’t go there! It is a universe of liberty.
There is to be going-away party for Nicole on Sunday.
The Page, Volume 55, Volume 1, comes out tomorrow.
A family member of Ms. Gunnison has died.
I have received Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand by mail—I ordered it from Barnes & Noble, not online, but from the physical bookstore. Ran me $24 plus shipping and tax. They couldn’t get me Ceasefire—may be out-of-print.
I have been pondering the issue of whether to do track, when that time comes. Racing is nice, and a sport keeps one busy—but there are other things that are nice, and other ways to keep busy. I wonder about my financial situation—shouldn’t I try to find a little work? When? Where? Andcetera?
I need to write fiction. I am thinking Seanan’s writing club will help. And there could be this behavioral revolution burgeoning within me …
When I reach the age of majority, I want my bank account to be fully in my name. I would like a checking account and a check card. I want to join a personals website as a birthday present to myself.
I want everything I do to be infused with a sense of dignity. And you don’t have to be eighteen for that. It’s all in my control, should only I gain the full control of my control—as it were. I have feeling and sentiment. I have plans and dreams. I have my act and my word. I have a penis. I have a mind (I am a mind) and I have been blessed (so to speak) with so much.
“And revolution is near…”
Here’s to the glorious jurisprudence of the life of the mind,
Zack M. Davis
ADDENDUM—“If Only There Were Eight Earlier Addendums”— Just as the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People, so the enumeration in the Diary, of certain nifty things, shall not be construed to deny or disparage other things that are nifty. —ZMD
D.—
One can wonder if one is specific enough in one’s writing—if one should spend more time recording the cold facts and less time expounding the same tired sentiments and talking points. Is one scared of errors? Fear cannot be allowed to sway one from one’s reason—there can be no more cowering.
But I could be almost excited. There is so much to do, so much glorious buisiness to be taken care of, so many books to read—so much to study. Studying is important. It is vitally important to spend lots and lots of time learning and planning and thinking and writing—perhaps almost as if the only goal and hope of one’s existence was to be beyond reproach—to be so good at all things that no reasonable people could criticize one, lest they all discorporate from shame.
I took pictures of a girls’ volleyball game tonight, Las Lomas at Northgate. I spoke with a professional (surely that man is a professional) photographer, and a “stave” of Northgate’s student newspaper (The Sentinel, I am given to believe) made an interesting request of me.
One of the many things I could learn more about is photography.
I have gotten very angry over a new policy announced by Coach Schreiber—the behavior from my sentiment led Coach Dan to send me home from practice early yesterday. How can Schreiber feel that it is any of his fucking business if we wear boxers as underwear to practice? I don’t really care about what underwear I wear overmuch, but I have gotten very angry on principle. I did buy briefs yesterday—I actually quite like them, but the point is that I should not have had to buy them. I have thought it likely one should calm oneself—not fight over trivial issues.
One can—wander through annals of libertarian thought, and come out confused—or converted. I am thinking that perhaps one should be very careful about making analogies to government. What compares to a government? One should not unjustifiably extrapolate concepts out of their respective fields.
People who are born into poverty have to work so hard to achieve their dreams—if they can. They have to expend so much effort and struggle just to make it. I was born into such wealth—shouldn’t I strive to work just as hard for my ideals? Don’t I owe it to them, in a strange sort of way? I think I understand something about the source of wealth. There can still be time for things like Teen Titans—one must just be very careful with one’s time. One needs to finish everything, but one also needs to do things right, and that takes time—how much? What have I given The Page, and myself? How does Kathy—but let it rest. And one can have trouble knowing if one has spent enough time looking over one’s writing. What if one made a mistake? But wasn’t it all in good faith? Was it? We meant well—and we shall too do well. We must mean yet better, however, and do better. Do I sink into platitude?
Kathy—but let it rest. Dear reader—but let it be the best.
Here’s to novelists, industrialists, and humanitarians,
Zack M. Davis
2111
D.—
The Page is switching printing firms. I am to race in a cross country invitational tomorrow. I have had a conversation with Father about Judaism and ethnic heritage. He strongly recommended a book— The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews by Norman F. Cantor. I have watched tape of Gilmore Girls and Teen Titans. Club Rush was today; I took photographs, for The Page. There is so much to do—and surely I have not even begun a real struggle.
I am not going to school on Rosh Hashanah, nor Yom Kippur—so Mother has decided.
Cathy Young has a blog.
Sony ought to fire their marketers, now. Sony is advertising a new television set, and it’s ugly. The advertising, I mean. From a big, color ad on page A6 of the 29 September San Francisco Chronicle:
“INTRODUCING BRAVIATM
“THE WORLD’S FIRST TELEVISION
FOR MEN AND WOMEN.
“We had guys in mind when we gave it wider viewing angles and a picture that keeps up with the action. We had women in mind when we gave it a broader color spectrum and a slim, wall-mountable design. So when we created the world’s greatest high-definition television, well, it was for both of you. sony.com/HDTV”
This is insane! They bought an ad on yahoo.com, too. It’s only an advertisement—but I find it strange that this should be that which is determined to sell televisions, because, blast it, they were all androgynous, always! “Bravia”—who came up with that? What is that—a portmanteau of “bravado” and a feminine-sounding suffix? It’s only an advertisement—but one wonders about the people who think of things like this—what is their assumption? That my world was all sex and beer and dirty jokes and football games—and that Kathy’s world was sunshine and empathy and insecurity and hearts and flowers?
Imagine shopping for a new television set:
“This model is good: it’s got an broad color spectrum.”
“What?! That’s a woman’s TV! I can’t buy that!”
In the TimeOut section of the 28 September Contra Costa Times, on page D4, there is an article headlined “Male, female difference in shower not about plumbing.” According to a survey, women take longer in the shower, often staying in for 10 minutes. “Many women find this to be a nurturing place of escape.”
Men, the article says, “are more businesslike. They get wet, get clean, get out, get dry and get dressed. What do men think about in the shower? ‘Sex and work,’ Magids said. ‘Men shower when they need to and stay only as long as necessary.’
“One last gender difference in the shower: Magids found that more women face away from the nozzle, while most men face toward it. Why?
“‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘That’s just one of life’s little mysteries.’”
I shower like a woman.
Imagine a pollster asking survey questions:
“Which female celebrity would you most like to shower with?”
“J. K. Rowling.”
I could feel like saying I don’t know why there should be some ceaseless silent rebellion within me—but I know exactly why. Or am I just posturing, trying to prove to future readers what a good feminist I am? What’s going in my Tuesday Write? Not that I will be in school on Tuesday.
Well, if I were posturing, wouldn’t that say something about me, that I want to be seen one way?
There is so much worrying one can do about one’s writing. What if one made a mistake? How many times must one vet each sentence before one can feel safe or virtuous? I have tried. I am also to try harder. I am not going to settle for my natural trajectory.
What if I never “get laid”? Why should I care? I think of sths Greg Drosky said today. I have given myself orgasm, at any rate—no pun intended—and—in the long run—is it really so great? It’s a sensation; it’s very nice, but it goes quickly. But when you write something beautiful—that glory you can have forever, or as long as there are still copies in existence. Sexuality, heterosexuality, specifically, is great, and it is something that will never leave me. It is wonderful to look at a woman’s body—not to leer, not to stare—but just to happen to see in the course of daily business, and appreciate how beautiful it is. A very subjective beauty, I’m sure, but wasn’t it all? “A grain of sand calls itself neither grain nor sand.”
But—something evilly bright and traditional in me could be saying—if you can appreciate the splendor of there existing two different kinds of bodies, why can’t you appreciate the splendor of two different types of minds? Oh, but that’s different! The mind is our identity, and we are all intelligences, all rational beings, and there can be no prejudice, because we are all individuals. Or is it now quaint to believe in universal reason? Is it a universe of polylogism?
It could be that I don’t care, not about—that. I must devote myself to something—my purpose, my lifework. I want to gain more information, and think new things, and organize all the thoughts of my mind, and have that get laid, laid down in print for all to see.
So what is it, that I love the system, but the final act itself I do not think is so great? But I have never been in this act, so how do I know? There is so much I need to learn, about so many things. I am exploring ideas. Or perhaps—I do care, very much, but not for the reasons you think! It is the same drive, of course, that same inscribed motive, but it could be that it was only in my mind that it was glorious, because I have a theory of mind consistent with human dignity. Now, surely I am being conceited there; I can get to feel so special—maybe I am understanding that bit about my life being the highest of values. It is a vision of nondominance and nonsurrender. It is a vision of study and fun (concepts alien to nature both) that we could know this together, apart from what they make it out to be, and we could talk it all over, she and I.
Boys will not always be boys—they can be superhumans if they want to and are strong enough. Or robots, temporarily, when the need arises. Does journalism make me nervous? But I need to learn to have no shame, I need to learn to do my job, I need to learn to be dauntless/intrepid—that I may continue to experience all this! That my life—something. Does what I have to do for journalism make me nervous? But it’s part of my job for The Page, it is something that I can do, that I have done, as I have used the telephone and felt good afterwards, proud of a job well done! What is it, but that tonight is the night of my Randian liberation?
Is it late? Can I sleep in the carpool tomorrow? It is all in my control, and I will just have to puzzle it all out … oh! How much time have I wasted, in so many places? The homework must be done, and my glorious writing must be done, and there is so much glorious writing to do, and if the time comes out of sleep, that’s fine, and if the time comes out of masturbation, that’s better. I am so clever—but I have been provided with so much in the way of books and education! Doesn’t everyone deserve such opportunity? There is so much I need to learn, so much I need to do. One must use one’s time wisely—a planner is a powerful tool, but great power can be wasted, as by those men who use a rifle as a club.
Are young people just idealistic? But I have reason! Are men ambitious? I should be.
Do some people get annoyed when you act like you believe something?
Here’s to classical music, classical physics, and classical liberalism,
yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
D.—
What if, amongst rational beings, all governmental classifications were suspect? This would strike down sex-segregated public restrooms (“separate but equal” is no good) and sex-segregated sports teams in public schools (boys and girls would now have to compete for the same roster slots). Crazy? What if it’s just part of the cost of having these public services—because organizations using government money can not discriminate against any human because of a collective classification? But private entities would be totally free: you could start a black college, or a club that admits only women, and an atheist employer could make a policy of not hiring anyone who thinks she’s going to Hell.
I’m not sure about urinals, but who cares?
One must draw a distinction between what one wishes society would be, and what one actually wants the government to do.
But the notion at hand could have—disturbances—outside of politics. Is Brianna Larson a fast runner? (103) What [if] the answer is no? No, she’s not really all that fast, because we cannot draw lines among adult humans, even if it’s true that half of us are born with lesser capacity to build muscle mass? Would I be content with being told, say, that I am an understanding person—for a boy? No, I feel I would have to say. Because I am an individual, and I don’t want my treatment to be tied to the performance of the rest of those bastards. I don’t trust them; I don’t like them. If I was born one way, and that means I have a lessened capacity for something, then that’s just a fragment of who I am, and it could be that I don’t want to be treated differently because of the classification, because I am to be held responsible for that which I am. Even if it might seem unfair, because it was always less fair to classify me, to lock me in a box with those bastards, when I am no one you know, and you get what you pay for.
And I run up into the white man’s guilt—surely some readers would conclude that my obsession with individualism was just a smokescreen leading up to things like this—a sinister plot to keep young girls from participating in public school sports.
But could not this type of radical individualism be the only real feminism, the only real antiracism? I believe with perfect faith that women and minorities can compete in a free market and trounce white men like me. I don’t believe in classes of victims, because I believe you could all be heroines, that we could all—
Did I just say faith? God, should She exist, forgive me! Everything I believe I believe from reason—or should.
Imagine what interesting conversations I could make, if only (?) I were a girl:
“Nice race, Zelda! You’re really fast!”
“No, I’m not. Greg beat me by two minutes.”
“But—Greg’s a boy …”
Now, it’s interesting that I am writing this (be it treason or whatever) because I remember saying, when a girl has told me that she can’t run that fast, that, not to put too fine a point on it, they sort of hold the boys to different standards.
What do I have to prove?
What if only a person being granted special treatment because of a classification can be justified in fighting the policy? Does that make any sense, for it be wrong for one person to argue x, but right for another?
Was pure individualism crazy? If so, perhaps “glorious madness” wasn’t a contradiction after all. But I’m not crazy when I don’t like being stereotyped.
It takes a long time to write things. This needs to be remembered in planning. Am I scared for tomorrow? But a human must sustain her own life. Each entry in a Diary is only a small fragment of the totality. Sometimes it is best to leave it at this, not necessarily in the spirit of “give it a rest,” but in the spirit of switching to another activity.
When I do fall into line, as happens so often, I could be doing it as with a banner embroider’d with a message:
Not necessarily for the reasons you think!
Leaving it today at this,
your faithful—rational scribe,
trying to try, and hoping hard,
Zack M. Davis
1320
ADDENDUM—“Critique of a Paean to Federalism”— The tyranny of the local majority may be an improvement over the tyranny of the national majority, but I think we can do better. —ZMD
SECOND ADDENDUM—“Probably Primitive Prelude to a Possible Preface to a Cure (Marie Curie Abundant Energy Edition)”— One thinks of things one has written, and is to write—what a beautiful, radiant ideal! What if all my problems were but one—a poor memory, that I could not remember much of the time the radiant love of that which is good in the world? Or is it that because my memory is poor I am spared much of the time from remembering the shitful horror of the minefield surrounding the abyss? But without minefields, where would we film our radiant action movies? To be sure, we don’t know why there is something instead of there being nothing, but noting that there is, we must be glad of it, and know that if conditions are not as abundantly radiant as we wish them to be, we should work to improve them rationally, instead of following a course that, followed through to the end of its terrible logic, would simply result in the end of all conditions for one human—all conditions but one. No amount of cookies will heal the breach; no dark poetry could smother the radiant happiness following a successful and smooth completion of a mission once feared; and postmodernism was a word game like any other.
Is the struggle of life—any life—worth it?
Not to put too fine of a point on it, Z., but it was easy to know it was never in doubt.
Here’s to tomorrow, the novel, and the end of cross country season,
yours radiantly,
Zack M. Davis
2003
THIRD ADDENDUM—” ‘Teary-Eyed and Heart-Warmed’ “— Now, an activity is probably a waste of time when you can devote your full attention to it in the morning and in the evening not even remember for sure if you did it or not that morning. So why masturbate? Oh, it is the”glorious madness,” then? But don’t you see? There are much greater glories to be won! It could be that Christy Yorke—and Cecelia Choi, didn’t even know, and that in the face of my radiant glory they would be left scratching their heads. But let’s not get conceited.
Here’s to me not calling Katie Kolodzie “Kathy” on accident—or on purpose,
yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
2059
D.—
Three things that make me feel sexy:
Briefs
Antisexism
Not masturbating for a whole month
That last may be rather speculative, as it has been so long—and such lists may generally be at least partly in jest anyway.
Imagine:
“Nice race, Zelda! You’re really fast!”
“No, I’m not. Spike beat me by a lot.”
“But—Spike’s a cheetah …”
“I believe in treating all entities as individuals, regardless of classification.”
“So the world record for the 1600 meters—”
“—is shared. By an uncountable number of photons.”
A change in plans: I am to attend school tomorrow. Have I been rude to Mother? Perhaps I should be quieter in my days, more withdrawn. It’s so hard, to put forth a consistent and good image of oneself. One wonders what would happen if one did try to be “all things to all people.” But I am irrevocably me; perhaps it is just a matter of tunneling the definition of that which is me into something that I would be proud of—so to speak.
I have much work to do.
Didn’t I try to be accurate? One wonders—what are the limits of to what heights one can push one’s mental achievements? In analogy, a human can only run so fast, to be sure, and there may be such a thing as innate ability—but we are not to be graded on effort.
Didn’t I try to make sense?
One could wonder how far one can draw mind-body analogies, when it was always the one controlling the other—but then, what’s a mind without a body? What can it do? But our identities do lie in our minds, if some of my fantasies (straight as they are) made any sense at all—but let them rest. But do our identities lie in our minds, or are they our minds? A thing is that our minds change as we grow and learn, and this is not to be mourned as a loss of identity. Me now and me-five-years-ago are still both to be reckoned to be Zachary Michael Davis. Perhaps identity is to be reckoned on a basis of shared history, that I was all one entity that just got tweaked along the way. But if you took a bunch of nanobots and had them rewire my brain to be just like Kathy’s, I think it is fair to say that the human resulting from the operation would not be me. Perhaps the most logical solution is to say that the heap problem of identity was just a word game, that things are what they are, and what index of identity is needed to keep the same name is rather arbitrary: the story about the ship that kept getting parts replaced was a boring one.
Materialism can sound sad; religions can sound worse. It’s liberating to think that my life belongs to me, not God.
I have a lot of homework to do, and the business of The Page could be very stressful—but could it not also be that stress was a phony excuse invented by the weak, or something that only exists as an emergent property of all the things the weak say about the week? But we, seemingly emergent properties of bunches of mindless neurons, should probably not be spoken of as “only” existing. We exist, just as much as matter does.
Stress, the word, is used in daily speech like distress, but what if it could all be eustress, if only we tried hard enough? That the rushing pressure of interviews and homeworks due were just as glorious and—radiant as the rushing pressure of waiting outside for Kathy to finish with—but let it rest! There are plenty of other symbols to choose from, as there are plenty of other words that end in e-s-s. Success is one of them.
I am very likely to survive to the end of the scholastic year, and after that I won’t be in Journalism class. I am very likely to survive to 28 December, which will be a very symbolic date, because that is my eighteenth birthday. I am a man, to be sure, and too I have the capacity to be a good man if I so choose—and haven’t I tried to make sense and be altogether true? But surely I can try harder. There comes a time you take a breath and see what you can do.
Yours—radiantly (in my fashion)
Zack M. Davis
2005
ADDENDUM— How much sleep does one need? What is there to say about anything? Surely there is much to be said, as it would stand to reason that anything could be said about anything. And life continues, and there may be—forms to fill out, and one can ramble on and on about things, and it could seem that the rambling never helped with the strange emotions, that nothing could help but the obvious: inner strength to continue onward with power. It could be that the glory of communication is in eloquence, not simply talking alone. I am sure it is such a huge commitment to have children and raise them. To be responsible for a human for so long—it must be such a burden! But if the humans are to continue, they are to reproduce—biologically everyone has a mother and a father. It could be that traditional values can seem strange to some people at some times—what is this “family,” and what is the purpose of these silly, arbitrary gender roles? But—not arbitrary. All alleged mental differences aside, women are the natural caregivers in the sense that they have breasts, and those are for nursing babies. But what, really, was masculinity, and why should it be important? It could be that one should not complain about how one is viewed in society, because how people view one is rightfully up to them—and it is up to the individual to try to change their minds, if she can. Anorexia is not, cannot be “political damage,” not if we are what we think we are—free, rational individuals. One can rail all one wants against the tyranny of Nature and Nurture, but—try to imagine of a palatable universe without them. How can one make it all fit, all of one’s responsibilities, and all else that one wishes to do? There are so many interesting things one can read about, and reading about interesting things is not in itself very stressful—but the goal of one’s life is not to avoid distress! The goal is not even to be happy, really—the goal is to be successful, to put one’s highest ideals into action. One wishes to be a writer of fiction, well—shouldn’t one sit down and take the time to write that? It could be that one is more naturally inclined to write in one’s Diary—because that is easier, perhaps, or because one may feel one has not yet told the full truth about oneself. But one has told something, and one hopes dearest readers would come away with respect for the Diarist—that he worked, that he loved, that he understood some things, that he took care not to tie the individual to the collective! There are many things I have to learn: something about sex, something about work, something about rest—and much, much more. It can be so easy to relent, to say one will try harder and make it all up the next day. But how long can it go long, if one’s fantasies (some of them) are to be fulfilled? Writing a novel is a long, difficult process. Getting good grades requires consistent studying and doing of homework. And to be a worthy journalist—my! One can get so tired, and getting up in the morning can be so hard to do when one has not had a full complement of sleep—and one can even feel bad emotionally. “It’s an uphill battle.” It could be that one must constantly remember the importance of packing things in, and therefore must always be doing something productive. But what if one needs time to float if one is to continue to be creative? What if one was already working at full capacity? This seems unlikely, however. One has thought that one must quickly get all of one’s work done with deadly efficiency. That way, one has all of the time left to WRITE FICTION, or do pleasure reading, or write in the Diary. It could be that one is afraid of doing this because one fears that there will be no time for the writing of fiction or for pleasure reading or for Diaristic writing. But shouldn’t one at least give it a try? Does one fear losing one’s creativity, one’s flair, one’s zest for life? Are any of these things that can be lost? Life can be scary, and one can go goth—or one can go novelist or industrialist, or “steampunk.” What if I go to sleep tonight without having finished all my homework? Can’t tomorrow start the glorious new eira? How many times have I thought the equivalent of “I mean it this time”? Haven’t I meant it? One despises having to get parent signatures. One can write, and write, and write, and one can be so clever, but one might have missed one point. What have I been trying to communicate? How can I show dear readers that I am actually a good person? But one should think that if one actually knows one is good, one shouldn’t need confirmation from an outsider—though it would be nice. But it could be that one must first know it for oneself, before any outside praise can really be very helpful. One can get tired. One can feel certain ways about certain things, and it could be that it was no crime. When has one said enough? When must one calm down? When has one said enough for now, for that one can come back later after one has done greater things?
Does anyone female out there understand?
Why the classification? I am thinking there are two reasons: the personal, and the political.
Here’s to figuring things out,
Zack M. Davis
2302
D.—
Again I feel as if I want to run away. I want to answer to no one. I can see how so many people think they know how teenage boys are irresponsible, immature jerks. But it should be strange that I should be angry about being stereotyped. It must have been—must be—horrible for women, and for black people. Has everything digressed into a strange sort of mutual repression, cemented in place by self-slander? But people prejudging you is not oppression, because they have the right to think whatever they want about you. They have not initiated force. So it is up to the individual to show by her counterexample that you have no idea who I am. So the crying I have done, and the anger I have felt may have been quite counterproductive, because all one can do is be productive. Be better than all of them. Get better grades. Make more money. Write a novel, the greatest novel the world has ever known. Never utter a prejudicial statement! What if there is no romance possible to me? I feel like it has to be me against the world. I want to be free and independent, but too I see how supported I am now. I hurt, and I rage, and what anger was justified, and how much of all this is but a cognitive distortion? Maybe I should not hate anyone. I just have to improve myself to the point where I can show by my counterexample anything that needed showing, and I would be so good at things that no one would dare to criticize me. But I am a picky eater! How can I go on? But it is clear that I must—suicide is never very likely to help one’s cause—whatever that is. How much of this were cognitive distortions? One can get so confused and hurt, but one cannot give in. One cannot.
There is, as always, no such thing as society.
Yours hurtfully,
Zack M. Davis
1828
D.—
Nicole is leaving tomorrow.
I have not been well—emotionally, of all things. It’s so—sad (if that’s the right word) that there should exist within oneself such mechanisms that cause oneself to behave so irrationally—and destructively. It’s insane that one should feel so bad—what’s emotion? Sight is something you can explain—we have these organs that can detect light, and this is a way in which we gain a specific kind of information about our surroundings. Pain you can explain; it’s this sensation we get when our bodies are being damaged, and it is very hurtful thing we want to stop. But what was despair?
Or is it overly dualistic to assume that physical agony makes sense, and mental agony (if there can be such a thing) is unreal, an illusion, something that we could will out of existence if only we tried? But if the mind-body dualism (if we understand terms) wasn’t actually true, it was one of the world’s great metaphors. Reason exists, and if in me it is saddled with a big bag of triggers and destruction circuits, that doesn’t make it any less real. From personal experience, I have reason to believe that there is something that can justifiably be called will—and if it was a neat arrangement of neurons rather than a soul, you do not hear me complaining. There is the one scary thing—a soul, presumably, would be untouchable, uneditable by outside forces—identity. Neurons can be got at. But when one speaks of souls, God usually isn’t far behind, and presumably God could edit your soul. But there are plenty of dystopias one can concieve of when one opens one’s consideration to all possible worlds—or just what might be possible in this one. It would seem useless to dwell on such things. The world exists, and it is worth everything we have because it is everything we have—now. Anyone who suicided over Quarantine was a fool.
But I have spoken of the irrationality of feeling bad—but what about feeling good? Couldn’t that be said to be equally “irrational”? If there is never reason to cry, by what means would there be reason to dance? But it would be absurd to divorce emotion from all reason and reality—it’s just not all that arbitrary. Rationality does not imply purposelessness.
What is insane is that I had broke so easily. Could it be, as it is said, that I am “human too”? But there is no reason in only bringing up humanity when talking about flaws. All my glories were just as human as my failures—or more, one hopes.
I have concieved of myself as strong, resourceful, intrepid. But somehow I have fallen behind on my CLC homework. And I don’t like to talk to people for journalism. I feel the “stress.” And maybe I really don’t like some of the things some other people think.
Somehow I get so hurt!
But doesn’t it feel so good to be on task, and know it? It’s good to be lucid. And it can be hard to satisfactorily explain why one was not always so. Why can’t one just remember that one has been through such feelings—before, and there was never any good reason for it—before, and one has always gotten through it alright in the end—before? I seem to have a memory of being fubar’d last Election Day.
What if there was such a thing as “only” high school? I have thought of myself as an adult, as a human of business, as dauntless but wise. But what if—for the moment—I am just a stupid boy? What if I was not really so radically different in a good way from all the other boys? What if I am something like—Corey Jacobson with some emotional problems? But surely I am no such thing; I feel so different from everybody, from all of them. I have ideals. I have my antiprejudice and my love of excellence and my not-so-sociality. I have this.
Zack M. Davis is not “masculine,” nor does he cross any lines. And someday I will be able to say the second part. (I had better make it soon.)
I think of myself (if those are the right words) as an adult—I hold myself as equal with my teachers and adults I might have to interview for The Page. But how do they see me? I am a high school kid—and I have to admit that maybe something of what that is said to mean shows in me. I still believe in the gallant individual young human, wise beyond her years, dauntless and capable. But I might not be strong enough, yet. But it could be so sad—I want to be mature now, but if it takes me much longer, it won’t be anything special—it would only be expected.
Perhaps there is a difference between me and many of my contemporaries. I may not perform on a higher tier than them, but at least I don’t want to be as I am. I have an ambition, a purpose—and if I get triggery sometimes and wreck all plans for a time—at least I did have plans.
Or am I being arrogant again? What sets me apart? If anything? I want to be mature, independent, responsible for myself! Self-controlled. But I have had so much trouble controlling myself—this is if I really even gave it anything close to a decent try. I just felt so bad. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—remember myself into lucidity.
Am I not liking this time? But this too will pass. Even natural fate has me graduating and going to university. So if I am going to live through this time anyway, why should I not be able to generate the strength to make it glorious?
Or is it that I have spent too much time writing in the Diary, and not enough doing the CLC homework? But I can feel (if that is the—but let it rest) like I am (despite all metawriting!) such a good writer, like I have the greatest Diary in the entire municipality—or more. I’m fairly intelligent; I have my ideals; I am—what? What is the name of that missing part that is keeping me from being good, from being that radiant counterexample? Or were there many missing parts? I am in need of strength of character, a certain sense of life, a certain dauntlessness. Or do I just need to remove some (i.e., all!) laziness? Or maybe I need to learn how to not want sleep so bad.
What’s wrong? Was it okay for me to take this time to write? Why did I spend so much time in madness today and yesterday, and so little in lucidity? And even in lucidity and half-lucidity, how much productive work did I get done—besides the writing, we know I am clever at engaging my emotions to page or screen—but what about my grades? And the pages, the pages that are The Page?
I have learned that sympathy does not help, and I do not like being yelled at. Something has to come from within, and it’s simply not funny to at this point make a joke about masturbating or having to use the restroom.
Maybe there was something about the fantasy (straight as it is) that sets me apart. That I would never do “drag,” because that represents a mockery, and I don’t think there was ever any humor in mocking those on the other side of the aisle (as it were) because we are all rational beings, and there is no reason in polylogism.
Now don’t I feel lucid? Can I not review my notes, can I not march into that counseling office tomorrow morning and ask just whatever I need to ask for my purposes? Can I not pick up what cellular phone and dial what I need to and say what I need to, to serve my journalistic ends, even if it were only because one is to follow through with that which one signed up for? Can I not hold myself upright as a man (an adult human who happens to be male) and let them judge me as they will?
Can I not hold myself as guiltless? People have told me to relax, and I may not be entirely sure what they mean. I am not to relax in my activity, but couldn’t I try to let go of feeling?
Many children have to be had in order for the world to go on. We were all children once. How many people in the world are bad parents? In comparison, is it so horrible for me to be a bad high school journalist, so long as I do act as bold and give things a try? Would it matter, if a counseling secretary came to hate me? I am just one stupid kid—because I am not yet Brooke-Durant-intrepid, isn’t it okay to not impose on myself the pressure of being representative? Let people think what they will about the teenage boys—I cannot yet be troubled with that. All this is, of course, a compromise with my weakness—but let it be that then, if it has to be—for now. One feels love for women and minorities who took and take their stand to prove to all doubters—seeking no legislative favors or boosts, but only wanting to conquer all in a free-market battle for hearts and minds, to be won by their competence and glory! What strength! What prowess! (There’s another one.) What radiant dauntless splendor and self-control! Don’t I owe it to all of us to do whatever I can to show that I am good, that I am productive and strong?
And how is it to be judged that I would like to go to sleep now? I am tempted to think I can work on homework in the morning—but doesn’t that plan always fail? But what about—this time? And does it matter? Can I let some mathematics slip while I am figuring out how to heal my tattered heart and raise my tattered banner? How could I explain this to Father, that I need some time to think, to reason myself into permanent lucidity?
And if everything is the same tomorrow morning? But why should this be? And don’t I deserve sleep? Haven’t I been a little bit good? What do I deserve, praise or beatings? But in liberty, all praise and beatings must be self-administered, and it is so hard to beat oneself. But one must be the best, one must condition oneself to be the best, and break all destruction circuits!
What if all this was a smoke screen? What if Diary writing helped nothing? Sometimes I think that without JOU, I wouldn’t have any problems at all. But maybe this is not so, because surely the ints nervousness does not fully account for my laziness in other classes. It’s only a year! You’ll have to endure! Everyone—but let me rest? What kind of rest? How long? What’s wrong? How can I go on? But we must all go on.
I must break through all false agonies, because there was radiance in my kind of dualism, and I have to show them—I have to prove something—I aim to discover something.
It can get to be so late! But one is not to get scared! One must maintain lucidity! One must do one’s job! But one wishes to sleep! It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be safe. It’s going to be busy, with the pictures, and one’s story. But one wishes to sleep. I have drank much Coca-Cola, which has caffeine. I ought brush my teeth.
Somebody help me, I could be as screaming! But there can be no help, because this had to come from within. Am I a disgrace to The Page? But it’s only a year. And I have the xomic to think about, and it could be hurting but what is mental agony? What if I am just being dramatic—or lazy? What if it was all in my capability—easily—and I made up this lie about feelings and madness to save myself from the knowledge of the real truth about myself?
But one does not save oneself from knowledge, because it is only knowledge that can save us.
What is this agony? Is it real? Am I allowed to go to sleep? Who will read this? But what if this writing is just making me more nervous? Don’t I need to calm down? What am I scared of, anyway? Was it really journalism? Was it really just the mathematics? What’s wrong? Am I to tell Ms. Gunnison I have been feeling bad, or can I not play it stoic, instrumentalist? Am I not a senior? Am I not an adult human? Don’t I have to prove to all doubters that my beliefs do not make a man weak? Why should I care what they think? Feelings? It’s one year; then I can leave and start anew without any journalism, and soon there will be no more cross country.
Feelings? Rough ’em up! Feeling sad, I have cut my body—before. What if this time, I cut my emotions, in a gesture just as pointless, but just as vital? I can do something bold and stupid that will hurt my feelings, not because I have a reason to do the action itself, but because I need to get used to cutting my feelings. Just as one [can] take a blade and slash oneself quickly with it, so one can fire off any question or comment. And let the feelings—bleed. But what if in the process of hurting my feelings, I hurt someone else’s, too? Is that not blackest sin?
What if I need to use the “crisis counselor”? But do they have a cure for me? I doubt this. I do not want to be the crazy high school kid, suffering from feelings. I want to be sane. I want to be rational. To prove to all doubters! For heroines and heroes, past, future, and today!
Am I genius, touched with madness? Or madness, touched with genius? Or am I ordinary and just pretending? Or am I just mad?
But I can be lucid, can’t I? What if I try to write myself into lucidity? What if I try to write what someone stoic would write, and then maybe could I hold onto that feeling—or lack thereof?
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: so it is said! But I am from Earth, and presently I am departing to spend a year on Vulcan, as I aim to discover something about logic, and about the attributes of a creature who makes sense on eir own terms.
It could be time to go off the record for a while. Perhaps because the source of records needs to be preserved.
Here’s to Graduation Day,
Zack M. Davis
0042 Thursday 6 October 2005
D.—
One can be set into disturbance by an essay one has read, and pace, troubled, and think of celibacy, and imagine a future where everything merely turns out okay. One can groan, feeling the gears scratching each other in one’s head.
But you don’t have to see it their way. (Remember that scene in Part 3, Chapter IV of Atlas Shrugged?) If one thinks a dichotomy is false, one can declare it so, or keep one’s judgement to oneself, or do just whatever one thinks is desireable to do—it is a universe of liberty.
One can be set into disturbance, but then one can give oneself a very temporary present (!) and take a long shower, not at all businesslike. Because whatever the statistics and ancient truths, the mechanics and conventional wisdom, no one knows me as I know myself—no one else defines me, and if some others think I am lying—that is their foolishness. I do not identify with the monolith of Man; I am an intelligence with special features. And I exist, so then I have reason to believe I have an analogue, and I must hold on to this suspicion, and this sense of life—and there are yet more essays to read! I will certainly have to stay alive—and presently I could be stamping that statement “NEEDLESS TO SAY” in permanent ink.
One cannot be afraid of what others would think, nor is one to be shy in responding to questions on one’s philosophy. And I am not to be afraid, nor value love less than “getting laid.” One is not to be ashamed of the books one buys, and I am not to be ashamed of the fantasy, straight as it is, and bearing some relation. Why should I? It’s beautiful, and doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Let them—battle over me, as it were. One is not to go on strike against gendered society. One loves many things about society. One loves many novels—and is to write better ones.
Why would anyone want to smother any bit of one’s personality to “fit in”? It is true that others have claims [on] me—so I am simply to strike forth for measures of greater independence.
I don’t have too much time. I have things to finish. But it’s all in my control. Leave this at this for today.
Yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
1735
D.—
One can stay up so late, just because one is procrastinating. Just because there is something one has to do, and one does not want to do it. What would Mother and Father think to discover me up right now—and not doing the work I am staying up for?
I have thought of this time last year—I have looked at the old planner. How much has changed? All my words about glory and dauntlessness—what have I practiced? I’ve said it before—but isn’t it time to change? There must be a break with the past, and one cannot keep putting it off, else one push it all the way to the other side of the grave—unless Singularity intervenes—but let it rest.
Something has to change. It’s enough, it’s been enough, I have spent enough time scared to do ints, and stressing out, and talking about death to all my colleagues at The Page. Okay, we get it, Z. You’re sad. You’re scared. It’s been said. It has been felt, so why does one keep feeling it? One must move on, because one can only lose so much sleep before it really starts hurting one’s performance. And the performance is what matters—because I don’t want to live like this forever, I don’t always want to be holding, clinging onto alternating thin threads of terror and adrenaline—not when there may exist something that could justifiably be called control. Can’t one declare that something has to change, and break with the past? Just by declaration? I mean, I do seem to be this entity controlling this body, and controlling itself all the same—then how could I be unhappy at my own actions?
What if pushing your mind to its limits was a lot like pushing your body to its? I can only run so fast before I get tired (hurtful) and there’s only a certain amount of time I can maintain a certain speed before I inevitably—slow down. And my limits are not those of the greatest, but I am okay with this—I do not aspire to be a great runner. But how far can I push my mind—how hard can I think? And how much feeling can one surpress before it all comes streaming out the side? We all have our limits—and we can grow them, because we have willpower, and time to let the growing happen. But then, if our willpower had a limit? And we had a time limit? We are not gods, to be sure—so what is it that I am after? What if it was only a matter of degree—but what a degree! What if no one could help eirself? It could be that some philosophical problems seem horrible and insoluable when one feels sad, but when one feels good, they can seem no problem at all. Which was the illusion? Or were they two ways of describing the same thing? And how often does one repeat oneself, and how often does one feel sad? One wants to strike forth for measures of greater independence! But what if one is too weak? What if one just doesn’t have the will? On the one hand, one has one’s dreams and one’s love of life—“the devotion to something afar.” On the other hand, there is the madness and antiïmpassivity. One is given to win—it would seem to be an “either-or” (in that namely there are no ties) because either you are doing that which you think you should be doing, or you are not. But there could be a spectrum. And it gets so late! And one remembers the other times one has stayed up late, trying to deal with emotions! Bah! What was wrong? One thing I am very good at is writing about my tender feelings. But how did that save the world? Someone had to invent a computer; ey could not feel it into existence. One can feel as if it is one against one’s feelings, and if the feelings are going to keep winning every time, then maybe one should just die. I am not a fighting man, but everyone fights.
Something has to change, because I have gone through this kind of thing enough times that I know it is bad business, and that it’s time to just take it, and run, and you don’t have to tell anyone how you feel—should you feel, and you don’t have to act anguished for people like Ms. Gunnison to see, because there was no point in anguish, and thus there was even less of a point—the square root of even less of a point—in advertising anguish.
Don’t I have sth to write for JOU? But haven’t I gone through this agony of agonies before? So why did I let it get so late? I am scared that I am never going to learn to change, that I will always be able to be wrecked so easily. But it’s not as if I can kill myself and leave a note for my parents saying to give my college money to Kathy.
One can predict a future for oneself—one will go through agony, and hurt oneself, and then at the end of the scholastic year one will see it was not so bad after all. One will remember this, but it may not stop the cycle—what could stop it? What about staying up all night?
One can feel as if feelings could not be real—because there is no reason in some sensations and nonverbal dialectics. This would seem to suggest to some that we are not then rational beings, but we must be, else how could we even speak of reason?
Why can’t I just see that I have gone through this before and it was always stupid, so now it’s time to try to react in a different way?
One can vow and vow and vow to change. One can think of a great character, and think the basics of a story about her, and then—what? Is not one inclined to write? Why should I be so needy, crave so much reassurance? What compares to the agony of reason face[d] with its own powerlessness in the face of feeling? But one cannot avoid category “feeling”—what’s the agony, see? Nor does one wish to avoid category “feeling”—what’s a world without emotion? If it’s possible, what’s it worth? And this world? How did women feel this? But we were all rational—somewhere, deep inside.
How many pages did I write at times like this, in moods like this—and didn’t they all read the same? How can we bring about change? Where is my power? I could say that nobody understands, but then nobody should understand this, because it is irrational, and therefore shouldn’t make sense or be understandable. Crazy people can understand how one plus one makes three, I am sure, but this is not liberating to them, or should not be, as I see it. But then, am I not crazy, too? Can I make it as a great poet or novelist? What do I have to offer to the world, if I can’t offer my service to that which I value?
It’s not right to want to sleep and not care about when you get up again, and not care about getting to school in time to do ints before.
And it can get to be so late, and one can get to be so tired, and one can struggle under a burden one knows to be imaginary. Because feelings like this can’t be real. It’s all in one’s head—so to speak. What did Ayn Rand say emotions were? Is it that I just need to pick a better epistemology—a better morality?
Feelings aren’t real, and you cannot let yourself be stopped by a cognitive distortion. Why can’t I just drop all feeling, and all poetry, and all love, and just work, constantly?
What could help me? Would a hug help? Would sex help? Could a “soulmate”—help?
I have to be making this up, because feelings aren’t real, they are just something in your head. But if I am making it up, what motive would make me want to do that? Wouldn’t that have to be an irrational emotion? Everything collapses when you try to explain insanity.
How can you love life and be willing to give up striking forth for now, and be content with the asylum for a little longer? I do want to be an adult—more than you can say for some of my contemporaries. I wonder how much dishonor I bring upon the Cause if I am too weak.
What if feelings were real, too? Was it not that my big evasion was thinking almost as if pain and sadness were imaginary? They exist, it could seem. Just because something is in your head, it could be, doesn’t make it less real.
Does this theory arm me? Can I use it to break through?
What is it but that I know what’s good, but can’t practice it, and that most of my contemporaries can practice what they wish, but have no idea what’s good? But who defines the good?
What did I set out to reference in titles? Something has to change—and not just anything.
Here’s to self-control,
Zack M. Davis
0149
D.—
I attended some of Chochmat HaLev’s Yom Kippur observance with Mother today. We took BART.
I don’t suppose I have a religion.
What’s wrong with me? I have been so lazy. I have read that procrastination is “suicide on the installment plan.” And I thought I understood something about credit, but when you consider my actions—have I really known it? Interest payments are bound to make one suffer, yes? But think of student loans; it is important to go to college—but let it rest; analogies are only good for so much, before they fail.
Failure. What was there to say about it? Some might say it is the possibility of failure that makes success so valuable. But failure is such a horrible thing. It should be a strong motive to succeed, shouldn’t it, knowing what it is to fail? And if it isn’t, what does that say about you? Wouldn’t that prove you were too stupid to see where your actions were taking you—or that you saw, but didn’t have the will to endure in the mean time—or that you really, in your deepest heart, didn’t care too much either way? Diary, I am not stupid, and I like to think I care about things in the world. I have thought of novels, and years spent at university, and a wife and daughter. How badly did I want it? Don’t I want to live a good life? Don’t I want to be independent? Don’t I want to live?
I have thought, I have dreamed—I have worked, in my fashion. But it hasn’t been enough. I am not to be content to live like—this—forever. Am I a utopian thinker, to think that there can someday soon be something new under my sun? But there must be, there has to be, if only I try. Page Perfect was not an altogether meaningless phrase.
The other side of the grave, the other side of the aisle—what if these were no mysteries? That we were all—rational beings, and death was simply the end for a human.
One can’t keep putting off the break with the past. Something has to change. Somehow you have to learn to be dauntless, because you can’t let your feelings control you when the more rational parts of you know it would be evil. But what about when even most of the more rational parts don’t seem to want to change course, because they too have been infected by an evil (senti)mentality? When you know something is destructive, but you can’t change, and don’t even want to change? Does this happen? Could the self really be divided into parts?
What if I scheduled the break for 2000? And after that time I would never be idle, and truly go against every instinct that says to run away, even when I feel it would be wise—because feelings have nothing to do with wisdom?
Was it that I feared being an “asshole”? But isn’t it a risk worth taking, compared to letting life go by, without ever trying, without what could be requisite boldness?
And as 2000 were to near, would I cry “2015”? And then “2045”? And then—next morning, next week, next year? Where does it end?
Is it better to be Gail Wynand, or dead? But this was a false dilemma, and probably didn’t make any sense. As feelings never made any sense, or didn’t always.
I feel I didn’t want everyone to like me—I simply wanted everyone decent to not hate me. But what if I let one goal slip, that I might achieve others?
What if love is giving someone the power to destroy you by revoking their sanction? If so, why would anyone want to be in love? Perhaps my future wife and I will not be in love—or won’t really understand what it is. We could simply like each other. I have books on my reading list.
Time can seem to go so fast—I wonder if that just means one has been thinking slower than usual?
Was it that against irrational emotions, “the gods themselves contend in vain”? But we are not gods, and I aim to contend in the world, and too I aim to discover something. So many times I have sworn the end of an error—but I never kept the promise for long. New Year’s resolutions are famous for not even lasting to February or Sukkot. But if I aim to be famous, there are some trends I am going to have to break.
So many times I have sworn—how long can a cycle go on? What’s the escape velocity? Or, remembering that a parabola has two zeros if the vertex ain’t one, there may be two escapes. What’s the one that isn’t death? Wasn’t I good at math? Didn’t I dream? Don’t I want to live?
What if I try being an “asshole” for a day, just for practice? But that’s sinful, but timidity is wrong, too. Didn’t I have a source of ceaseless energy within me? Am I to pick a time?
If I am to hold myself responsible for my own feelings, shouldn’t I hold others responsible for theirs? But if they are not working (!) off the same premises, am then I committing a sin against them, because they see heartlessness as wrong?
Doesn’t there come a time to break with the past, to scream it out loud—“INVIOLATE”—and be prepared to do anything? Even talk to strangers? Even eat vegetables? Will time tell? But aren’t I supposed to do the telling, to give the orders around here? Who’s in control?
I am going to hope the dearest reader has understood something of what has gone down so far, and feels some measures of love for the author, that he thought, that he loved, that he understood somethings, that he was a good antisexist. That they would forgive what I am about to do next—whatever that is. But there are other[s] who don’t share my values. How am I to interact with them, and what would they think of my Diary? What evil it could seem to some, to deny Divine Authority and live by man’s [sic] rules! The thing about hoping that they will forgive is that it gives them something of a claim on you. After all, it’s your own conscience you have to live with—but it’s not as if that gives one a rest. Concerning my struggles with The Page, don’t I beat myself up over my iniquities more than anyone else beats me up? Isn’t the beating up destructive, in its own way? Do I need to instruct my “roommate” on how he can get better results out of me?
“He”?
If I die tonight, wouldn’t the dear reader have some decent impression of me from what has already gone down? Hasn’t something been preserved? Well then, doesn’t the same go if I change my personality for the worse tonight? The goal is to change it for the better, but if one is not content to live how one is, would it not be okay to try something new, whatever it is (because one is stuck by emotion to one’s current place)? To—“roll the dice,” as it were. But planning is not gambling, and I am a planning man.
What if one is stuck by emotion to one’s current place? There is no reason for writing about changing for the better to feel like writing a suicide note—and so it doesn’t, because we are all rational beings, and therefore the things we do are from reason-as-we-perceive-it, yes? That stands to logic, as I stand with logic, standing up against irrational emotions, a showdown for all reason and control.
This could be the Wild-Wild-West-of-the-heart.
Dearest reader, haven’t I been so clever? Haven’t I been so interesting and so true? How much time have I wasted? Don’t you love me? And wouldn’t you love me more if I could demonstrate that I don’t need your love to feel okay, to function, to produce?
If I die, would anyone actually read this? Or would the words be lost?
Why should this feel like the last night of the world? Things move on. This issue of The Page will get done, one way or another. If Ms. Gunnison were to hate me, it wouldn’t—directly—kill me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even graduate from high school without any more scars. It’s about (far past?) time to leave it about at this, for now. Maybe I can shut up about my feelings in public: I cannot let myself be an “emotional blackmailer.” All my mail was white or sky blue, and my chain mail armor was shining bright and impregnable, and I am a male, and that’s good and okay. Why should I be afraid to write the closing? I have told something, and if the dearest readers don’t like it—if they don’t like me—why should that hurt me? I am what I am, and I will splendor or suffer for it, justly or—perhaps this is possible—unjustly. Existence exists. Time marches on. Some people suicide, but others continue onward, because most of us really do want to live, and live well. Motors are invented, novels are written, software developed, crops grown, babies born! Babies are born! Who can say but that some texts are written without the passive voice at all? There is so much good in the world, and somehow I feel it is not only because there is so much world that even a small amount of good percentage-wise would figure out to a lot.
So why shouldn’t I leave this at this for today, and go on to an urgent, important task? The world will go on. And presumably so too will I.
First things first, yes? (Not necessarily what you think.)
Here’s to Stacey Ackerman-Alexeeff (or was there no such thing as “innocence by association”?),
Zack M. Davis
2105
D.—
What’s wrong, that one should have a terrible aversion to writing a thing? Leaving it to later only makes things worse; one knows this, and—ignores it so often. It’s sad that there should exist such cognitive distortions—one must fight them. I have suffered in powerless madness and hysteria, and I have been saved. I must study the contrast, and accept for all times which view was real. I have been lucky on many occasions—but one cannot depend on being saved. One must learn to save oneself if one wants to stick around—or travel volitionally. Is one allowed to go to sleep, and work in the morning? One is to be calm, to analyze—to work hard. One must remember feelings, and their causes—or reasons, depending on the feeling. One wants to break through for all time, to be someone great. One learns.
Yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
2358
D.—
Things are splendid! There is much to do, as there is always much to do, but I believe with perfect reason that I can, in my fashion, do it. To be sure, I have been a bad reporter. But surely a poor news article in youth can be forgiven in the face of all my glory—and my glory yet to come! I have tried, in my fashion, to be altogether true. When I have slacked, it was of weakness, not apathy. I try to be ethical; I try so hard—and am to try harder. I try to work hard; I try so hard—but perhaps this was already covered under “ethical.” I love The Page, and my title, and I love the possibility that I truly have earned the title—or am presently to earn it. Being forthright could have been a secular sacred rite—O all things for the sake of being right!
Is this my “manic phase”? Was the world a formless mass, and it was only my varying cognitive distortions that gave it meaning? But if I do give meaning, on what basis can this be called a “distortion”? Or are good feelings fading fast, and this writing is vainly serving as a lie to get me back to a state where I believed that I was worthy and capable of life? But it could be that (all depression wisely discarded forever) this state was for the meantime simply “California.”
Could it be that I still have triggers inside me? That I am not yet indestructible? Well then, now I will name the game to be avoiding triggers—but this could be a poor way to phrase it, because avoiding things is just the thing one has to avoid in order to avoid triggers! One is not to avoid a difficult assignment headache, a scheduling nightmare—one is to attack it; one is to rip it to pieces by achievement and solution and persistence and maybe synthesis. One is to work gleefully in remembrance of jobs well done, and in consecration to jobs left to do well, that shall be so done.
And jobs poorly done, in youth—may be forgiven. For that one is to be given (one hopes) time to grow, and if one story was poor, think of what wonders I do for The Page in other aspects! How will they get along without me next year, for all my technical skill? I am, in my fashion, fucking valuable, and I don’t need to cuss anymore either. Because I can avoid triggers, because there were—no evil thoughts—except one, and presently I am reveling in the splendor of thought and skipping and saving and seeing how this feeling has to last, and so too can a gallant human make it last—in its fashion. And so I am not refusing to live as a man, or say, adult human who just happens to have this cool class of body we call “male.” And it is a very nice model, objectively, subjectively, inside, and out. I am young—low mileage—and just breaking through or out.
What is it but that I am to be the Zora Neale Hurston of the Objectivist set? But that was just a funny trick phrase. A true description in a trick phrase may have to wait.
I have potential. I have potential to be so beautiful, and none is to doubt that I too thought something about beauty. I know that feelings are not to be indulged overmuch, and that rejections are not to be carefully worded so as to be soft on one’s ego. I am studying the best of both worlds, and seeking a synthesis in one world, my world, or also spread the glory over all the earth—and not by conquest.
Time is short. Go long. Don’t abort. Be strong.
Here’s to the Theory of Crush,
yours radiantly in trust,
Zack M. Davis
1930
D.—
What if the sexes tend to be different in exactly the way some people say? It’s no problem, because you can’t derive an ought from an is—not like that. In my view, it’s not good to be overpassive, and it’s not good to be overagressive, and neither is it good to hold rational beings to a double standard, even if rational beings may have something of different natures. A human could make it a personal aspiration to be androgynous in character—“the best of both worlds.” “Meet me in the middle,” and let bastards and bitches think what they will, because all one can do is live by one’s own ideals, and serve as a counterexample—without serving at all. I am what I am, I like what I like, tautology grand prix, and you can assess it in terms of the collective—but I do not. I do not deal in “anti-concepts” and “contemptible package-deals.” And what two worlds plus synthesis did I speak of? Weren’t there over six billion here on the physical one? One is not a perfect writer. One tries. One trains. One has only so much time. Perhaps there are to be no apologies for this.
When I do write TCE, it’s good to consider not bringing up the sex role vendetta at all, or at least not very much—because “femininity” is irrelevant to the character of my protagonist. She doesn’t think in such terms. In any case, I have another novel in mind for this battle. And a short story. I’ll have to make time, perhaps enacting a set of antiïdleness protocols.
I have been lazy. But I am, preëminently, coming around. Don’t I love to do well with The Page? I will try not to offend—but I do have my purposes. Can’t I do ints?
Aren’t I in control?
Yours,
Zack M. Davis
1809
D.—
Better than forgiveness is not needing to be forgiven. Similarly, better than catharsis is not needing to let tears and fears and vitriol stream out. One can want to not set a vendetta down—as if it gave one an excuse for sabotage, and one wanted an excuse. But better than having an excuse—is not needing one.
Perhaps I have not been so great a Diarist. I have talked about my feelings, but a great writer must be good at description and perception. A great writer, writing a Diary, would take care to have a good memory—she would document in detail the things that happened on a day, in addition to things that were felt. Every word would be engineered into place, and it would all be true.
I did not have a great liking for Stranger in a Strange Land (too much collectivist sentiment) but I thought the idea of the profession of Fair Witness was great.
“Who am I to judge?” It’s a good question to ask, when one has vitriol. And it could serve as the foundation of a new model of moral progress: the goal of moral self-development could be to regain the right to judge.
In a rational society, jokes grounded in stereotypes would not be told—not because a taboo of political correctness silences them, but because they simply aren’t funny—or rather, shouldn’t be funny. This is why laughter isn’t always a thing to be embraced—one could do well to clamp it down as best one can, after something that shouldn’t be funny but is has transgressed. Ideological purity could be more important than emotion, than feeling, than laughter—than love? Motivation could be said to be a feeling, but one must draw a distinction. There are higher passions and lower passions. The lower could be important, and color one’s life. But they must be broken to the will of the higher.
In the scene in Atlas Shrugged where Cherryl comes to talk to Dagny, there’s one part when Cherryl asks “What held you through it?” and Dagny says, “The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight.” In my copy of the novel, I crossed out with pencil the words “the highest of values” and underlined “too high to give up without a fight.”
I do know something of Randian arroagance. I can get to feel like I have a special sense of life that the others don’t. I don’t want to be a whiny idealist; I want to be a strong idealist. And if, for a month, I am pressured to devote myself to cross country—can’t I deal? Can’t I—“have it all”? Surely I have the ability for everything I am signed up for—it’s just a matter of feelings—of steadfastness. It’s only a month; you’ll have to endure; everyone—but this time, and for all times, do not let it rest. I have sworn to change time after time after time—and every time I have broken. All pressure from coaches was just as any political pressure, just one more factor for the idealistic freshman representative to take into account. One does not yield to social pressure passively, blindly, or unconsciously. One does what one thinks is for the best for now. Can’t I deal? One is to expand the limits of that which one can endure—if one has thought of being a writer, then one is to write, to make time, to observe—haven’t I been called a hard worker? Isn’t it up to me to make sure my emotional benefactors meant what they said ex post facto? There were never any tears in reason, and if a Diary entry is inadequate, one is simply to train at writing. How much actual event detail have I left unsaid? All you can do—is work at it, and work, and work—don’t I have a purpose? If I have been good at heart, let me now keep this and become also good at action. When I believe something with perfect reason, I can go on and say it. And do what it implies.
So I can finish cross country season with perfect vigor, but I am not doing track. Surely I am to devote myself to my studies and The Page and my fiction. Perhaps it was all the same vigor—to be absolutely excellent at whatever one is doing—to have the will to finish the season for the sake of finishing the season, and for the sake of will! All one can do is work—and I will—no pun intended. And fun intended? Well! The fun was in the glory.
I have stroked the side of my face and been glad for the hairs there. Not how you might think!
What was it but that there was something Kathy knew and understood, and I merely believed in? Don’t I see it?
Was it one year ago that I first wrote the name: “BROOKE DURANT”? With a drawing in my hand from that October, do I not see then the meaning of a year, the meaning of October—and what these things could be?
Oh! We are doing a congressional simulation in GOV, and for my bill I am reproposing the ERA. Is this not a part of my goodness? If I die tonight, I did write this and I believed some things with perfect reason, and I understood some things. If I were too weak for this world, I would leave knowing that at least I understood that strength was something to be desired, and it was to be used for good. That there would be no victims, and if there were somehow in the face of our gallant effort, then each an individual!
So many times I have sung of turning the corner. But look at a page of art from this time last year; look at the promise framed within those corners! One turns a page in one’s secret notebook, and the next is there to be written on!
This isn’t the end. I can keep up. I can have—the best of both worlds—I can have—the poetry—I can have—the novel—I can have—the grades—and I can endure—the pounding. I can have all this because you get what you pay for, and greatness in mind was the source of all gold. I cannot let myself relent or be afraid. I have reason, blast it! But blasting was such a brute method.
Perhaps I will take a shower, and then I will sit at my desk and work.
I’ll want to talk to Ms. Gunnison. But I can deal.
You’ll have to be sure, &c.
Here’s to documentation,
Zack M. Davis
2037
ADDENDUM—“Zelda Brooks”— And if I let this lab report slide by, too? As the last missed homework in the world? But how long have I been swearing the end of an error? From the very beginning of my Diary to the present, two favorite reference points have been Atlas Shrugged and Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff. It’s a double-obsession representative of achievement and rationality and a glorious, hyphenated future. I know a lot about the book, not so much about the woman. A creative mind is inclined to make symbols of things, I suppose. What, then, do I symbolize? Symbolize—to whom? To myself? To Kathy?
Does she know how often I write her name?
What is it that I want to say?
Wasn’t freedom practical?
Zack M. Davis
2353
D.—
Better than feeling well is feeling well permanently. One can feel okay but know, not that it can’t last, but that it would seem to be unlikely to last. But this sense of “okayness” is something one must cling to as if one’s life depended on it—or perhaps not only “as if.” All history and grievances must be made to fall to the words: “It must last.”
So I have had a long “philosophical” (bog!) discussion chiefly with Mike Senger. Such things could be confusing and calming. How can we know what’s true? How can we cope? But we will cope. Where there is a will, give me a longform “andcetera”!
I got a 94% on a CLC test and a 98% on a PHY test. In our simulation in GOV, I’m the Speaker of the House—a Republican. Shiva Kasravi is President.
I am to write a story on the skate park, and I have secured clearance to miss practice on the opening date, November twelfth. (I had originally secured clearance for the fifth, but it would seem to be on the twelfth now.) The rain date is the nineteenth, the same day as the NCS meet, so in the disasterous case that the opening gets moved like that, I suppose I would get someone else on The Page to go and collaborate with me on the story.
Things for the next month would appear to have a great probability of holding together. My aim is to do everything possible to assure that holding—perhaps chiefly by holding myself together.
What do I want to explain? How many times should one read over a piece of writing before declaring it sound, and moving on—to the next paragraph, the next task, the next issue?
Can’t I learn the lesson, for once? It had something to do with not procrastinating—or it implied things like that. But I am not crying. I see how I can make things work. It may be a narrow passage, but I am hardly fat, and in any case there may have been something I had to learn about compression—to say nothing of robotics.
What is it but that my final aim is a glorious intrapersonal utopia? Can’t I do these things? Aren’t I coming around, starting to remember? Someone finishes novels, someone invents motors, and someone could write a good news story, or go out for a good run—and avoid the coach’s wrath, while knowing that one could deal with such wrath, as one can deal with all things.
I want to confide in Ms. Gunnison—I want to explain to Kathy.
Who am I? I am the rational, conscious controller of this one body.
What do I need?
You’ll have to endure, &c.
I need eloquence and bravery and drive. I must win awards and pride. I am not a gender collectivist, and I understand some things. Don’t I remember?
Leave it at this for now.
Here’s to making Gunni’s canon,
Zack M. Davis
ADDENDUM— I have masturbated, taken a nap, taken a shower, looked in Atlas Shrugged and Ender’s Game. What have I believed this past year—and practiced? —ZMD, 2356
D.—
A human seeking Independence is liable to resent social pressures placed upon her to do what’s best for the team and disregard her wants and needs. She can feel as if these measures restrict her freedom—but if she would only free herself from her limiting emotions, she would not recognize social pressure as pressure at all. It was just words from others, to be accepted or disregarded as one’s personal glorious jurisprudence mandates. A human would do well to remember what she has signed up for, and to consider—how much more she could handle, if she so wills. The ideal is to be able to push oneself—above all coaches and contracts, to have the drive come from within, as so much was feasable. If we are not totally in control of ourselves, this does not mean that certain measures of self-control do not exist.
If one could take it from him, one should be able to take it from him, or her, or—blistering nebulosity.
“Understood” is a good response word. Think of the cleansing sense of righteousness one feels when one has been castigated, but has not reacted childishly! One feels, more than anger, a renewed sense of purpose—to get independent, as much as is feasable. Work hard, think hard, make money. Get to turn off tender feeling when you can’t afford it; don’t let them control you.
Was there a natural antagonism between parent and child?
There are some things about human nature that might be sad. Some conservatives might say human nature—what they define as human nature—is not to be questioned, and cannot be changed. I think a human’s goal is to make a life resonant with what she defines as her highest principles—and if that means fighting nature, then one must fight. But our principles likely did have something to do with our nature—it may have been argued that everything is “natural,” in a way. So the goal could be for select parts of nature to triumph over others. What did you expect?
Everything is grounded in reality, by definition.
“Boys bond bloody”? Ah, but no one else can define me. Did you think alliteration could tie me to a collective, make their values mine, their failings (and feelings) mine? I have no loyalty, &c! I am searching after my own moral completeness. It will require much study—much work. But one is to remember a sense of righteousness one felt at the junction of opposition. It’s hard to make a living in freedom, to be sure. It’s so hard to live, even in Demo World. But as long as we have any strength and any decency, don’t we owe it to ourselves to try to break free? Special protection debased what strength we did have. Did he ask if I didn’t get it? What if I didn’t? Or that there was nothing rational there to get?
“I got a plan; a demand,” &c!
Here’s to measures of greater independence,
Zack M. Davis
1625
ADDENDUM—“The Treaty of Paris”— I have attended a journalism meeting with Ashley and Laura and Sydney and Ms. Gunnison—at Ms. Gunnison’s house in Oakland. Our discussion had tangents, but important Page matters were discussed. Life feels splendid again—I know things are going to be very busy and stressful, but also very beautiful, if I am willing to work—and I feel that I am so willing. I love these people. And I know gender collectivists are wrong, I know beyond doubt or rancor, because conversation like tonight’s can happen. It’s not going to be easy for me. Good things are not nailed down as such, and I may suffer further—but we were not then altogether powerless, and what measures of power we do have are to be grown and wielded in a climb to spaces of further ideological purity. Diary, I am in love with an ideal, and I am an adult in mind, and I think I can make it work this time. I don’t know that it will be enough to pay off all the debt and rancor and decay. But that’s life, one would suppose. And everyone plays.
Here’s to drinking fountains, Harriet the Spy, and the spirit of Reed v. Reed,
Zack M. Davis
2119
D.—
What did it mean to be a WRITER? I didn’t do ev’rything I had thought of doing today, but I have done some things, in my fashion … you can’t be afraid to work. What is it that I had been seeking but—a sense of detachment from feeling? I have prided myself on passion—but passion must be controlled, rationally, in mind of one’s purposes. Am I just a stupid babbling boy? But I can reason, and I have used my passion purposefully (at times, in my fashion) and what’s more I can study and work. I can move purposefully with something like a layer of separation, of detachment—shielding me from flashes and slashes that would otherwise hurt irrational flesh. Haven’t I said I will stop apologizing, stop deprecating myself? What had I been seeking? Maybe it was something simple—some quality of antïidleness, with which you can just always be doing something, and thus not feel the guilt of having been lazy. But one could be said to be always doing something, meaning the task is actually the more difficult one of making sure one’s tasks are productive in relation to one’s purposes. To be sure, reading a novel is good, but how much time is to be spent reading novels, and how much on homework, and The Page, and writing a novel? O to not feel guilty! It could be that one wants to answer with absolute devotion. Answer—to what or whom? Perhaps one should learn to cycle—if one is idleing on one task, quick, pick up another, or then another, and then back to the first—don’t let it rest. We have sleep for rest. The other day, I believe I went lucid—then I woke up. How did I get to that state? Was it something about that pattern? Did I sleep too late this morning? And am I running out of time tonight—when?
If one had set up the detachment so it didn’t matter what anyone thinks of one, then one cannot be hurt by being “shot down”—but would that mean one couldn’t have any friends, either? If insults didn’t hurt, then how could praise feel good? But surely this notion is vilest sophistry! First of all, the universe is not so cruelly balanced: if good and bad were so tied together, we would scarcely make the distinction, but we do and need to; the good is better than the bad by definition. Second of all, we know there does not exist the cruel balance [because] the exact opposite of the glorious detachment has seemed to occur in me: harsh words would destroy me, but praise felt surprisingly like nothing—seriously, the resemblance was uncanny.
And I could be feeling sleepy-tired, but I have some JOU thinking to do, and JOU writing (and the other writing would be nice) and I could use some organization, and isn’t it nice to get up early?
It could be one has to try something new. Detachment. Work-by-inertia in the interims. Maybe start being less mystic and more journalistic.
And so to—not bed. Not right now, but pretty soon, I think.
Did anyone understand my agony? Or wasn’t I displaced from it now, should it have been real? Emotional pain could not have been an analogue to physical pain, not really, because physical pain was in response to things that actually damage the flesh physically. But words, how could they hurt a mind?
The mind, it has been said, is the realm of reasons, and the world, the realm of causes. But perhaps some of the mind—the part with the baser emotions in it—was also in the land of causes and it was only the higher-purposed reasoning and goal-setting parts of us that belonged to reason. But didn’t we love sex, and want it to belong to reason? Rationalize that, you self-hating male, you!
Bog, I can be clever. And this plays into the Treaty—I have known, I think, something of what it feels like to be a great newspaperman, and a great student, and a great WRITER. All these were but matters of applied cleverness, and a measure of detachment from the critics and the teacher and the subjects and the parents. Knowing this, having known certain feelings, can’t you go—detach one measure—resume motion—calculate a sec—APPLY IT! I’m not afraid to work, am I? It wasn’t so bad, and didn’t I see what it could get me?
New blessing to put in the books: “May the derivative of your virtue never be negative.” Amen. But it should be remembered a dy/dx of, say, 1.228872179*10–99 was positive, but not enough for what I am aiming to do.
Aren’t I good at what I do? Isn’t that the measure? Didn’t a character in a book I once read, and keep coming back to, say something about a morality on the gold standard? But the United States is the most powerful economy in the world, and we have fiat currency now. Still—gold—that’s something. How long has Kathy been making her own lunches?
Enough. I have written—I am to write more. There is business to take care of, and my life hangs in the balance—as always. But what more could a human want? Surely one did not mean to unbalance it!
Bog, I’m clever. But death, too, springs eternal—and I have autumn to manage.
Allister has a new album out—but said, “Enough.” My life, the highest of all values? A human needs sleep.
Ad astra, &c.
Here’s to “Better Version of Me,” a better version of me, and taking writing tips from Lois Lowry in the shower,
yours in trust,
Zack M. Davis
2313
D.—
I did really badly today. There’s no reason to behave as I did. It couldn’t have been delusional to think that one day I could just accept that such displays and evasions are useless, and refrain from them from then on.
Diary, have you noticed what an alienating experience it is to see someone else very angry or sad? To the observer, it just doesn’t make any sense.
Zack M. Davis
D.—
—and sanity returns—one should think. How could I let distress stop me, knowing that which I know?
Play on, Kathy! And I’ll go on as well.
Zack M. Davis
ADDENDUM—” ‘She’ll Win …’ “— There is no moral fault in dying in an accident, or from disease. And if you think you really have a good reason to suicide, I’m not liable to second-guess you overmuch. But there can be no excuse for tearing your entire life apart for no reason at all. There are things I want to do in life and ev’ry unjustified tear was as a tear in the banner. Such tears and tears were not what I meant when I thought glorious deconstruction. I have ideals of behavior in mind, and if I, the idealist, can’t practice them myself, how could I expect to show the world anything? The path of my recent history has been as a sinusoid: I have reäffirmed my purpose, many times, and I have broken, many times. I have done ints before: what part is it in me that breaks periodically? Can a human suspend pain for a month? Is there any sentence I could write to you, Diary, that would convey my hurt? If not, am I a poor writer? Or was it that hurt as such was not something meant to be conveyed? I have felt bad before, and if I did not exactly triumph as such, I have made it here. I have not meant to be a duplicitous, pity-seeking bastard.
Question for study: why would anyone vote against the ERA? Question that needs to be answered within twelve hours: how can I restore my full rationality?
Zack M. Davis
“A man’s [sic] emotions are the product of his [sic] premises and values, of the thinking he [sic] has done or has failed to do. But the man [sic] who is run by his [sic] emotions, attempting to make them a substitute for rational judgement, experiences them as alien forces. The paradox of his [sic] position is this: his [sic] emotions become his [sic] only source of personal identity, but his [sic] experience of identity becomes: a being ruled by demons.”
—Nathaniel Branden, “Alienation”
D.—
One can spend so much time in bed. One can think of a novel. But there is also business to take care of, and how could one be afraid to think of it, when one wanted to be successful in school and such? One cannot accept madness and misery as inevitable, when it is clear for all to see that breaking through the madness would end all misery, or most of it. Don’t I want to live as an adult human?
Zack M. Davis
0804
ADDENDUM—” ‘Without Rusting in the Rain’ “— I think I can reason again! If something irrational can undo me for no reason, at least then that something irrational can too be undone for no reason. I just need to hold on to that sense of—okayness. There’s no reason to deconstruct, so I won’t let myself. If we didn’t have perfect self-control, we do have some certain measures of what may be called power. I have a splendid piece of writing I want to give to Seanan Fong. The meet was cancelled. And surely I am coming around. Didn’t I love life? Didn’t I want to show Cecelia a novel that makes sense on its own terms? Here’s to applying reason to the problem of desire, and to people who didn’t have to deal with this, ZMD, 1826
SECOND ADDENDUM—” ‘Enough to Fry My Brain’? “— What’s wrong? People talk about feeling bad—but what is feeling? It doesn’t make sense; it can’t exist. One cannot waste away and tear up the foundation of one’s life for no reason. But it can seem as if that is what one is doing. How can you explain the madness at the junction of opposition? There is a sense of freedom before it. You can stay calm and do that which should be done, or you can neglect obligations and destroy everything you wanted to have in the future. The choice is yours, nothing is restricting you—and somehow you find yourself turning to the wrong one! Why? What’s wrong? There is going to have to come a time, one thinks, to end the madness. One is just going to have to force oneself to do things that are confomfortable—maybe because they are uncomfortable. All my evasion—what was it for? Thinking is precious—and if I don’t, in my heart, want to make the effort? What if all this is leading to a call to extremism? That I would go to sleep soon, and when I wake up I will decide if I really do want to live after all. If I choose to live, I will act accordingly, and if I don’t really want it so much, I will just find a tall building, and let Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff and Cecelia Choi fight each other for the world, because I’m done. Not to say I know either of them well enough to make a proper character judgement; it is as if I just wanted to say something interesting in my Diary. It doesn’t seem right to make allowances for a depressed person, because feelings, like effort, could be impossible to measure. How can you tell who is genuinely, clinically depressed and who is just lazy? I’m not convinced there was really any difference. What if it goes down in the records that Atlas Shrugged was the book that broke my heart? Because I believe that people can be strong, and rational, and productive—and I hold this belief while having to see from the inside the wreck of my behavior when I get in a bad mood. Dagny Taggart, we can be sure, was never escorted to the counseling office. How can you stay sane when you can’t stop from behaving insanely? How can I bear the ignominy of sending out distress signals? The obvious solution would be to stop sending out such signals, but that would require controlling my behavior, and if I were the one controlling my behavior, there wouldn’t be any distress? What if I did something stupid? What if I called up Kathy’s house, right now, and told her everything I have been thinking, and that she is to me the measure of all things? Why would you do something stupid, knowing it was so? To prove that you are dauntless, that you can say anything to anyone, and that no one’s opinion of you can stop you from doing that which you have decided to do. Mark it somewhere in black oil pastel—Shameless XXVII—finality. Do I want to live? Do I want to write that novel? Do I want the grades? You get what you pay for—and am I prepared to pay for a life of rational achievement? Or am I to from a high building make myself once again one with that eternal spring?”One with”? Isn’t that such a collectivist phrase? It could be as if I want to show the world something! But don’t I have to show myself something first? Was it a proof?
Is this the last night of madness? It has to be; it has been too long, and I am too old. This has to be the last night I am insane like this, or surely I will die! If I want to live, I am going to be prepared to think when I get up. And I will think and I will solve my problem—if there was a problem beyond the not thinking.
It’s probably a good thing that I am not a girl, because this way when I get hysterical and act irrationally, at least I am not confirming a stereotype. Surely somewhere there is a girl with anger problems who wrote the mirror sentiment into her Diary. Not that Cecelia would know. And being sane, of course, is immeasurably better than being crazy in an untraditional way. I cry; she beats the crap out of people. If we really wanted to show the world something, she and I, we would cure ourselves. If we really wanted those dreams, if we really wanted to live, we would cure ourselves. We would live with reason.
I am to go to sleep. And in the morning we shall see who wanted to live, and who would rather cry.
The end of the line,
Zack M. Davis
2209
D.—
I want to live!
Here’s to reason,
Zack M. Davis
0700
ADDENDUM—“Nonepisodal”— I have free will again. There are still many worries around, but I am no longer out of commission. I am going to have to work hard. What was there to say about human nature, and all the miseries and ecstasies? I may be very far away from mounting the sort of revolution I had wanted. I owe the Cause my fullest rationality and effort. O what have I been doing? I must retain this sense of sanity for all time! It’s going to be so hard. But what did one expect or want in the world?
What was there to say about human nature? Not what you think! …
Don’t let it bother you, &c.
Here’s to nanotech,
Zack M. Davis
1801
* * *
End Volume IIA