After posting an entry on "delayed action" -and how I'm struggling with it-, I came across a strange thought by Žižek, who was talking about belief and discussing Palestinian suicide bombers: -It's a strange logic in which the bombers themselves have doubts, and their suicide becomes a way of confirming their belief. 'If I kill myself in this way, I can calm my doubts and prove, even to me, that I do believe'-. Full text here.
I liked the idea for its sheer wrongness: how eagerness to prove oneself can become a paradoxical way of demonstrating unbelief. So on one level this stillness is killing me. On another level, it's "building some character", as Bill Watterson would have it. I want to step out of this confusion, and yet everything seems to say: more confusion, more tension! You'd betray now if you were to leap into some virtuous course of action as a way of avoiding confusion.
As this puzzling confusion settles in, everything else becomes a side interest. My PhD is something I do on the side, my relating to others is something I do on the side. Yet, both of them are going great. The PhD writes itself, I'm much closer to people than I used to be, and my decisions are more solid -and all of it seems to be happening "on the side". Maybe this will never go. Maybe, as the confusion deepens, the side activities -even significant ones- will solidify as well, in a strange dynamic equilibrium...
I liked the idea for its sheer wrongness: how eagerness to prove oneself can become a paradoxical way of demonstrating unbelief. So on one level this stillness is killing me. On another level, it's "building some character", as Bill Watterson would have it. I want to step out of this confusion, and yet everything seems to say: more confusion, more tension! You'd betray now if you were to leap into some virtuous course of action as a way of avoiding confusion.
As this puzzling confusion settles in, everything else becomes a side interest. My PhD is something I do on the side, my relating to others is something I do on the side. Yet, both of them are going great. The PhD writes itself, I'm much closer to people than I used to be, and my decisions are more solid -and all of it seems to be happening "on the side". Maybe this will never go. Maybe, as the confusion deepens, the side activities -even significant ones- will solidify as well, in a strange dynamic equilibrium...
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