I don’t feel like writing anything of substance anymore. Of course one of the reasons is that there is no substantive exchange. But mostly when I meet the readers in person, a rare treat, I realize that they completely miss the plane of ideas, there is no common experience, no common slice of the ordinary. Or they don’t notice that I moved on from the points I used to make. This is the emptiest of the feelings. Instead there are still the attacks of the drones. I admit, it very much gets under my skin. People who know me, say that I never had a skin. I feel dismay with my readers. I feel like I am riding a train, I have traveled a million miles, but every time my train stops, it’s the same station, the same people, the same clock on the wall, the same coffee shop, the same barber, the same cat. If I can use another cliché , I can’t wrap my head around this. I am also disappointed with my writing skill. I don’t think I will ever be able to write with the flowing grammar of the native speaker. I am a perfectionist of style. This saddens me a lot. The dice of the fate never rolled my way, which is another way of saying that I feel unlucky, even with this project. And so this game draws to its close.
This game draws to its close
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I for one greatly appreciate the content that you find and share with us. Where ever you turn next – I wish you the best and look forward to discovering you in your next iteration.
Ben
Unfortunately, it is your lot (as well as mine, and many others) to live in a time and place where the life of the mind is not valued, while that of the superficial is. Whether is has always been thus, and in the same manner, doesn’t change our reality. In a sense you are doubly afflicted, in that you come from a place that was supposed to be the antidote to superficial capitalist materialism. And even though in Russia/Soviet Union (both before and after the rise of Bolshevism) the highest heights of Western culture were achieved (math, physics, literature, classical music (especially violin and piano virtuosity), ballet, chess (whether this is a component of western culture is another debate)), as Noam Chomsky has said (paraphrasing), ‘Bolshevism set back the cause of socialism at least a hundred years’: socialism not only in the sense of human justice, but in the realm of human relations, where people take precedence over things.
In a sense, we are living in an an epoch very similar to that described in Robert Musil’s, ‘Man without qualities’: an interregnum, both geopolitically, as well as culturally (it’s probably more accurate to say that we have been living in an era of multiple, overlapping interregnums.) Perhaps, all is that is left to us is to do as Musil did, when he stated (again paraphrasing), ‘So that in an age when much greater mistakes are being committed , the smaller ones won’t be forgotten.’
Many thanks for all your effort and for many great posts.
not a day has gone by in at least three years when i have not checked in to see what is going on in the mind of ben atlas.
i just discovered Ben Atlas. I love the sharpness of mind in here. It saddens me to read this post. Every great thinker, writer, or artist goes thru periods of self-doubt and depression. Even the “merely good” ones do too. This is normal. You will come out the other side, and i hope you see more light and goodness there.
I know you get angry when you see my name, but that should not stop me from thanking you for being my teacher about many important lessons in life.
I have been checking and following your posts for years, from the time you had your “mentalblog” when you brilliantly exposed the fakery going on in Chabad, and how you put down “Tzig” — can you imagine a guy actually named and devoted his blog to be anti-you at “anti-Tzemach” how flattering, and no one I have read has done it better or more brilliantly than you. They probably throw in a few thousands kvitlach a day into the ohel to beg for help to get you to stop, so it’s surprising you are giving in so quick. Then you had your short merger with the “hirhurim” blogger, and how anyone ever thought that was a shiduch is a deep mystery.
Then you went on to this blog and it’s great. So mind expanding. Your series on Wilhelm Stekel was incredible, I ordered the book from Amazon and read it cover to cover and of course the work that followed by Maya Byerski about the abuse of the Chabad rebbes was incredible, and your posts about the last rebbe’s wife and his possible liaisons with Sabbateans and the fathering of a child was mind shattering.
You wrote good stuff on Barry Gurary. Your insights into Russian and American life, history and politics is amazing and enlightening, but your recent hate for the siddur and attacking Yiddishkeit over-all has gone to far, yet we still read you because you are good. Did Plato and Aristotle write because they wanted friends? Socrates was put to death for his activities and now you are going to bow out?
I know that you demand to “meet” people but that is not realistic because some people need anonymity not to be destroyed by their enemies. Why do you think that this blog can achieve what Facebook does not? No blog can.You should be thinking how to monetize your blog by placing ads on it like many others do. As for the language issue, that is the last thing you should be worried about! You make yourself loud and clear and many people follow you. This would be like the Baalei Tosphos stopping to write their complex Tosphos because noone can follow the language or the logic of most of them, it’s too complex and function with too many reference points on too many planes. You should have been deep into Talmud and Kabbalah and kept away from the corruption of Yiddishkeit that hurts all those with real hearts and minds.Don’t let the zombies discourage you and keep on blogging, oh yeah, again, think of how to monetize your blog with ads and not how to use it as a social ice breaker. I hope you will not delete this post. Thanks.
I am sorry to hear this and hope that you return to writing shortly. Your blog has opened up new ideas and new avenues of ideas to me. I am grateful for this but more than that, I hope it continues.
I’ll repeat here what I said at the close of Mentalblog. Ben Atlas is a true prophet of our time. Prophet=vision+courage+style+a pinch of aftzelochis. (and I don’t mean true in any pejorative sense).
“So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging.”
Much success in your next chapter, I’m rooting for you.
This site will be missed.