“I don’t think people really want democracy. This is horrible to say. I think what they want is the appearance of democracy.”
– Slavoj Žižek
Dushan Wegner
I write.
People rarely look at a villa or a skyscraper and say: “Wow, that house has some impressive groundwork! The marble, glass and golden toilets are nice, but have you seen the foundation it is standing on?” – Nah, you do not hear that.
Some of my texts have been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Some texts were among the most read in Germany on that day. Whenever I want, I can write tweets that generate hundreds of Retweets. Little VIP-push, no TV-support, just the pure power of Talking Points.
But up until now my texts have had a serious drawback: I did not want to give these texts to my children. When my children stumbled upon my political writing, I discouraged them from reading.
A horrible scenario
Imagine that: You are a writer and you tell your kids, the most important humans in the world to you, that they shouldn’t read your texts. It feels empty and wrong.
It is 5:00 in the morning. My family is still asleep. As America’s Finest News Source reports, this is the time to be happy. I get up and step onto the balcony. The air is sweet and clean, like always in these summer mornings. A tender breeze is ruffling the palm trees. Other than that, the rest of my world is still asleep too. Just the way I like it. You people sleep, and later, when you wake up from your slumber, my words will hit you, shock you, leave you dumbfounded, and by “hit you” I mean: I hope for your grace to share the tiniest bit of your attention and read one or two of my sentences. I would be quite thankful. – My workday begins.
You know how they say, “follow your dreams”? I cannot entirely shake off the suspicion that “following a dream” is an idea too fuzzy to be taken seriously. Following a plan or a vision, okay – but following a dream seems dubious.
Anyway, I would prefer a variation of the underlying sentiment: Do what you feel is right, right now. (If that sounds shallow or even dangerous to you, that is because your concept of right is wrong. How do you like the logical self-immunization I did there, haha? But seriously, we have to work on the whole metaethics-thing.)
Over the years I have written a couple of stories under the collective title/concept “The Master Smiled.” These stories are based on ideas from old teachings and a few recent variations of these. They are “mine” in the sense that I have written them. They are also “not mine,” as their kernel comes from men and women much wiser (and mostly deader) than me. I feel that I should rewrite some of these digital scribbles and put them online.
A couple of days ago I posted Rice Cake, today I am posting How the Master Guessed Who Was Right. This feels like the right thing to do, right now.
Final words: Turn off the TV
Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard
© 2017 Dushan Wegner
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