The Cogito has, up until our present day, devalued the perception of others; it has taught me that the I is only accessible to itself, since it has defined me through the thought that I have of myself, which I am clearly alone in having, at least in this ultimate sense. In order for the word “other” not to be meaningless, my existence must never reduce itself to the consciousness that I have of existing; it must in fact encompass the consciousness that one might have of it, and so also encompass my embodiment in a nature and at least the possibility of an historical situation.

Phenomenology of Perception, Preface – Maurice Merleau-Ponty

초가을 검은 피부를 비추며

빛바랜 사진처럼
얼룩진 베게처럼
때 묻은 헌책처럼
따스한 색으로

허나 또

화장실 형광등처럼
태평양 한 가운데처럼
스마트폰 액정처럼
차가운 색으로

지구 반대편
산골짜기에서
밝힐 수 없는 공동체는

새 날을 맞이하는 내 눈에게
빛으로 신호를 보내고 있었다

Educated non-European non-native English speakers want to speak more sophisticated English, but sometimes it becomes bombastic when in front of native or European English speakers, as they try to sound more adult and prevent being talked down to like a child.

Does speaking more sophisticated English make one assimilated? But at the same time, doesn’t consciously rejecting assimilation at all times make one equally trapped in it? English is like a toothbrush. Everyone uses it. You can scrub dog shit off your sole, but you can also prolong the joy of chewing on steaks. There is no correct way to use it, but if you don’t use it, you’re a fool.

“Seeking above all in literature to formulate a message that is their very own, …they scorn the artifice which for them, whose intellectual education has been almost exclusively [English], would represent recourse to a language they could only use as a second language they have learned.” 

Black Skin, White Masks, Michel Leiris via Frantz Fanon translated by Richard Philcox

Therefore no event in the life of man can possibly be excluded from painting. Consequently, a great injustice is done to the eminent painters of the Dutch school, when their technical skill alone is esteemed, and in other respects they are looked down on with disdain, because they generally depict objects from everyday life, whereas only events from world or biblical history are regarded as significant…
Moreover, the scenes and events that make up the life of so many millions of human beings, their actions, their sorrows, and their joys, are on that account important enough to be the object of art, and by their rich variety must afford material enough to unfold the many-sided Idea of mankind.Even the fleeting nature of the moment, which art has fixed in such a picture, excites a slight, peculiar feeling of emotion. For to fix the fleeting world, which is for ever transforming itself, in the enduring picture of particular events that nevertheless represent the whole, is an achievement of the art of painting by which it appears to bring time itself to a standstill, since it raises the individual to the Idea of its species…
Therefore, those eternally praiseworthy masters of art expressed the highest wisdom perceptibly in their works. Here is the summit of all art that has followed the will in its adequate objectivity, namely in the Ideas, through all the grades, from the lowest where it is affected, and its nature is unfolded, by causes, then where it is similarly affected by stimuli, and finally by motives. And now art ends by presenting the free self-abolition of the will through the one great quieter that dawns on it from the most perfect knowledge of its own nature.

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Representation, Section 48.

My biggest drive is to cultivate my spirit. I will to enrich my spirit.
The aesthetics. It demands desire that withstands time and scrutiny of honesty.
What I create should perfectly capture my spirit in all its imperfect richness.
World should overflow with this aesthetic.

That world is what I deeply desire. I want to be in that world and be that world.
And yet, time and time again, though with less frequency, it saddens me in moments of realization
that there is very little of aesthetics in this world, because there is little sensibility and appreciation for it.

There was a time when I romanticized over social bond to others.
That there is something beautiful in the relationship between people.
While that’s true, I realized it is so only partially.

Relations between people also require tension.
That’s what solidarity is. To share the time and space in keeping the tension and conflict.
And humor is a good lubricator.

I have rubbed my own skin on some of these relations.
And I regret none because I can say with little hesitation now.
I no longer romanticize over the others.

The others are the biggest unknown, the object of fear, the God.
But they are also always a reflection of me, hence my foremost enemy.
Disappointment quickly mutates to disgust when I sense a hint of poverty in the spirits of others.

Comrade has become a dull word which lost this sense of contradiction.
They lack the sensibility and appreciation for aesthetics.
A comrade is not a dialectician.

I’m a humanist because I wish the human species to thrive.
So I’m also a humanist because I have no empathy for any poverty in human spirits.

If philosophers have for long understood the world in contradictions,
I admit after all, I’m an anti-social socialist.