September 30, 2010
Derrida’s fear of writing
by Dennis Johnson
Jacques Derrida discusses his anxiety about writing in the video below, from a 2002 interview.
Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.
Writing is a vice, explains William Faulkner 
Literary epiphanies while running 
New Yorker editor praises Adam Gopnik, thinks all critics “bullshit” 
Writers: Don’t sleep 
2 Comments
The first thing that occurred to me is that the voice he heard while drifting off was trying to protect him from attack, that maybe it’s a holdover from when we were still wandering the savannah and had to sleep among lions. “Don’t anger the lion!” Maybe the negative things my own mind tells me at 3 a.m. when I awake panicked that I’ve failed in life come from a similar place: don’t rock the boat, be nicer, who do you think you are to challenge X, you self-aggrandizing fool?
The first thing that occurred to me is that the voice he heard while drifting off was trying to protect him from attack, that maybe it’s a holdover from when we were still wandering the savannah and had to sleep among lions. “Don’t anger the lion!” Maybe the negative things my own mind tells me at 3 a.m. when I awake panicked that I’ve failed in life come from a similar place: don’t rock the boat, be nicer, who do you think you are to challenge X, you self-aggrandizing fool?