The Epistolary as Spiritual Exercise
I’m in Paris, trying to work on my French in part by translating paragraphs from the last Foucault lectures, given in 1984, entitled “Le courage de la vérité.” In doing so, I came across the following, spanning pages 4 and 5. I won’t reproduce the French, but in English it says,
One can also cite a number of practices, such as these correspondences, these exchanges of moral, spiritual letters, of which Seneca, Pliny the Younger…and Marcus Aurelius give examples.
And on the one hand it makes me think, and this is almost too obvious, that we should write more letters, with all the care and time that goes into speaking in our own handwriting, the next-best, or just-as-best, thing to our own voices. On the other hand, it reminds me that we shouldn’t feel so bad, or silly, or as if it is somehow unacceptable, to share ourselves–and in the context of spiritual exercises this seems to always mean a kind of laying-bare, a way of volunteering a state of vulnerability–in the epistolary context. Most of all, for us now, this means over email, text message and who knows what else. But despite almost everyone’s (wise indeed, the problem of nuance over email is well documented), all texts require interpretation, even hand written ones. As such in writing at all, even electronically, in this way you are, after all, in the best of company, as Foucault reminds us.
A small, extra point about this that seems to be worth bearing: it is not at all a matter, for me in writing this, of that uncomfortable state of personal vulnerability that we hide from at all costs, especially in these ironic times, and especially in the context of the electronic-epistolary, being made comfortable or safe. Seneca barred himself to his friends and comrades, yes, and I need not even mention The Confessions, but we don’t know that this was easy for these people, and I would hazard a reasonable guess that in fact, it is precisely because it wasn’t easy or comfortable that it was worth doing. And for that reason, I remind you, and myself, that these kinds of acts and the discomfort that they invoke should be fostered, done, continued not because in recognizing their discomfort we do away with it, but in spite of that sense of vulnerability, and with the aim of taking note, exploring, reflecting on that experience, that feeling, those thoughts, what they mean, what they do to you, how they constitute who you are.
So for this reason, I would reccomend that you (and me) maybe do one of the following, or anything else that fits under the rubric Foucault delmits here: write someone a personal email, be honest and let your gaurd down, be self-effacing, or explore your faults (or perceived faults, as they are just as important) in an electronic correspondance; tell someone you are angry with but which you know you’ll see again and have to reckon (and work it out) with, in plain English to “fuck you”; email a song to someone you care about; and so on.
In doing this, you’re doing something for yourself, and “to” yourself, that is an unecouraged in our culture as it was for the ancients. But again, in doing so, you are in the best of company, and who knows what else.