Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Mea Culpa

I happen to know that one of my previous posts on this blog – namely, The Second Most Important Thing in Life – has been the cause of some upset. If I had merely offended some war-mongering religious fundamentalist who had accidentally stumbled upon these pages in search of… whatever such people search for on the internet, I suppose I would not mind so much. But on this occasion it seems I have upset someone closer to home (No, not literally).



I don’t intend to say much on the subject here. I certainly don’t intend to defend the post in question. That would suggest that I thought it was ‘right’, and I have never really considered myself to be right. However, since it’s quite possible that I have upset other people close to me with that post, or other posts, I would just like to say, if I have upset you, and you’re keeping quiet about it, I’d rather you told me. Gently, if you can.

While I don’t want to ‘defend’ what I wrote, I would like to post a couple of things here that might offer some partial explanation. The first is a quote from a letter written by Bill Hicks. There is a link to it in the post below with the title, A Virus in Shoes:

The artist always plays to himself, and I believe the audience, seeing that one person can be free to express his thoughts, however strange they may seem, inspires the audience to feel that perhaps they too can freely express their innermost thoughts with impunity, joy and release, and perhaps discover our common bond - unique, yet so similar - with each other.

This philosophy may appear at first to some as selfish - "I play to me and do material that interests and cracks me up." But, you see, I don't feel I'm different from anyone else. The audience is me. I believe we all have the same voice of reason inside us, and that voice is the same in everyone.

In other words, though it may have seemed I was drawing a line between myself and others, and, while I may have accidentally been doing just that, my intention was closer to the intention expressed above.

The next thing I would like to post is something I wrote in reply to a comment left under the post in question. (Being an anal writer, I publish this blog simultaneously on both Blogspot and Opera. I haven’t yet been able to locate the ‘comments’ option on Blogspot, but there is one on Opera. In case you are reading this on Blogspot and were puzzled, that is the explanation). Here is the quote:

Hello Theophilus. Thank you for writing.

I'm not sure I'm trying to solve the problem of self so much as the problem of other, but presumably the same difficulties occur. I'm well aware that what I have written is likely to say more about my own inability to relate to people than it is to say anything about those people. Nonetheless, I didn't think the expression of these feelings was entirely without value. They seem to circle endlessly round in my head, anyway. Embarrassing as they may be, I can't simply deny them.

As yet I have no answer, hardly even a clue, just the intermittent feeling that there is something I must urgently try to communicate.

I hope that some day I will discover that my efforts have meaning for someone.