One Must Just Write, in Uncertainty and in Necessity
Not to write~what a long way there is to go before arriving at that point, and it is never sure; it is never either a recompense or a punishment. One must just write, in uncertainty and in necessity. Not writing is among the effects of writing; it is something like a sign of passivity, a means of expression at grief’s disposal. How many efforts are required in order not to write~in order that, writing, I not write, in spite of everything. And finally I cease writing, in an ultimate moment of concession~not in despair, but as if this were the unhoped for: the favor the disaster grants. Unsatisfied and unsatisfiable desire, yet by no means negative. There is nothing negative in “not to write”; it is intensity without mastery, without sovereignty, the obsessiveness of the utterly passive.
~Maurice Blanchot
The Writing of the Disaster ~ (Tr. Ann Smock) ~ Lincoln : U of Nebraska P, 1995 / pg 11
