the existence of man is essentially finite [limited by death, his existence is a 'being for death']. yet we manage movements--of transcendence--towards the world, towards the future, and towards its people
-anxiety, or care: we are always concerned with the future, with what is yet to come
re sex/gender joke - our future is limited by the fact that at the terminus there is always death as the impossibility of possibility // our future is again limited by the fact that our possibilities are not abstract ones, but rather are embedded in specific conditions not chosen by the individual
IRONY
'in irony a man annihilates what he posits within one and the same act; he leads us to believe in order not to be believed; he affirms to deny and denies to affirm; he creates a positive object but it has no being other than its nothingness'
BAD FAITH
is a lie to oneself; the essence of the lie implying in fact that the liar actually is in complete possession of the truth which he is hiding
the cynical consciousness too denies this very denial [this is different from the liar who intends to deceive (others) and does not seek to hide this intention from himself]
i) the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are one and the same person, which means he must know in his capacity as deceiver the truth which is hidden from him in his capacity as the one deceived
ii) that which affects itself with bad faith must be conscious of its bad faith since the being of consciousness is consciousness of being
--> but then this whole psychic system is annihilated, as if you deliberately and cynically attempt to lie to yourself, you fail completely in this undertaking --> in actuality, bad faith is precarious: it is the continual vacillation between good faith and cynicism [metastatic] // one can live in bad faith --> the subject deceives himself about the meaning of his conduct
- - - cont. - - -
I am my own psychic phenomena (e.g., my impulse to steal this book), but I am not those psychic facts, in so far as I receive them passively and am obliged to resort to hypotheses about their origin and their true meaning --> hence, I can know myself only through the mediation of the/my other; as I stand in relation to my (e.g.,) Id, self [think of the SERIOUS COMIC]
the opposite of bad faith SINCERITY--that a man is for-himself only what he is // this is a demand, not a state
--> but what are we, then, if we have the constant obligation to make ourselves what we are?
[a comic is in bad faith--is like the waiter ('movement is quick and forward, a little too precious, a little too rapid,...bends forward a little too eagerly,...too solicitous...') look at all the Winnipeg performances etc.: too rigid, too studied, too performed etc. --> it is not comedic or comical // c. the metastatic of in and out of good faith/sincerity (honesty, risk--like 'relationship in peril' jokes) and bad faith (material)]
'but what is he playing? we need not watch long before we can explain it: he is playing at being a waiter in a café' (CBC, club, contextualized performances)
THE CHILD PLAYS WITH HIS BODY IN ORDER TO EXPLORE IT, TO TAKE INVENTORY OF IT; THE WAITER IN THE CAFÉ PLAYS WITH HIS CONDITION IN ORDER TO REALIZE IT.
--> the public demands [of all tradesmen] that they realize their condition [of obligation to realize their condition] AS A CEREMONY [e.g., the function of a comic. their relation to themselves and to their audiences is not comedic, it's not truly comedy or playful, or honest--to themselves or the audiences]
'a grocer who dreams is offensive to the buyer, because such a grocer is not wholly a grocer. society demands that he limit himself to his function as a grocer' // 'there are indeed many precautions to imprison a man in what he is, as if we lived in perpetual fear that he might escape from it, that he might break away and suddenly elude his condition'
[and always, though, 'the comic'--the performance--is not the person, the comedian: 'there is no common measure between his being and mine'
to be a comic
'but if I represent myself as him [the waiter], I am not he; I am separated from him as the object from the subject'... [thereby] 'I cannot be he, I can only play at being him; that is, imagine to myself that I am he'
AND, then--the height of the irony--'in vain do I fulfill the functions of a café waiter'
'[he] is in a sense a café waiter--otherwise could [he] not just as well call himself a diplomat or a reporter? but if [he] is one, this CANNOT BE IN THE MODE OF BEING-IN-ITSELF. [HE] IS A WAITER IN THE MODE OF BEING WHAT [HE] IS NOT'
if the comedic is about a rupturing... [this is the crux: identity // the smallest, most inscrutable // the attempt of transcendence, sustained]