Early start for a meeting in Cambridge ameliorated by an indulgent cappuccino and pastry. Lunch with a friend then home for painting. Pushed paint around in the wrong places, futile. Very tired. Talked with dad about religion, jotted down some notes later. Given the human condition, the need for a wider purpose, the drive towards spirituality, the need to be subjugated or bossed or commanded or encouraged, it is a necessity and there is no better system. Not to be repudiated, it is in fact a logical necessity, given the preconditions.

Enjoying Turgenev immensely. Dry, laconic, philosophic, sensitive.


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Last session with my live model, worked on a painting so hideously bad I regret not destroying it before I left Paris. Back home now, worked on my sister's portrait all evening. Enjoyed musing on the Eurostar.

Finished reading Gödel's Proof which was illuminating and interesting, though I gave up following the (much simplified) maths and stuck with the high-level overview and the guidance of the authors on how to make a value judgment about the meaning of his theories.


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The lovely routine repeated. Painting at the apartment, coffee and sketching at a café. Enjoyed acting magnanimously and paying for things. A proxy girlfriend, a habit I formed long ago. Talked politics and once more found myself espousing views I'm not at all convinced I actually hold. I speak just to speak. I hopelessly lose myself by attacking the wrong points (i.e. going to the root of determinism, the grounding problem of ethics, the impossibility of predicting the outcome of actions), forgetting that I have since concluded that all this being so we still need to live, and to live we need to govern and so we need policy of some kind, and so it is in fact worthwhile -- or as worthwhile as anything can be given the ultimate and equal worthlessness of everything -- to hold political opinions and to engage directly with current affairs. But I derail the conversation and can't engage with the matters at hand, a sign of my political ignorance and alienation from the practical realities of the world. Was rightly accused of intellectualising everything. Mishkin.

Met another friend from Florence in the afternoon, talked about the demands of being an artist, depressed myself with how little I know compared to people who continued the course that I quit. Fantasised about being a full-time artist with a studio. Came home and worked on Jess's portrait, finished The Idiot and highly enjoyed its unsatisfactory ending. Started Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, which has an exquisitely precise style.

Dreamed of my ex because my faux-domesticity (washing up, cooking, watching films with a non-blood relation of the opposite gender) has revived dormant memories of ease and comfort and companionship.


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Was treated to two portrait sittings, and for once approached some degree of likeness. There is hope! They are drawings and not the paintings I set out to do, but nevertheless I am pleased to have made some marks that aren't entirely wrong. Very grateful for the patience, respect and encouragement I've been given to carry on. It is a nice change from the wall of indifference I usually get. Self-identify as an artist! Begin to think properly about it! Also worked at night on my sister's painting with more delicious Dostoyefsky.

Caffeine-fuelled loafing once more in another café staffed by English-speaking non-French young people. Frittered money strategically to leave a good impression.


Did my customary commute to sit with my friend and simulate some kind of human relationship. Came home and did four hours of painting to keep up with my new schedule, although I am already behind.

Listened to The Idiot throughout, which is not the masterpiece of the Brothers Karamazov but nevertheless resonates strongly with thoughts that return to me with a certain alienated majesty. Particularly the odious way mediocre men delude themselves into pursuing originality and pursue a horribly distorted image of themselves as something other than the perfect average that they truly are. This is how I feel having met diverse people at the party last night -- all of whom have some better mastery of any of the facets of my personality that I hold so erroneously dear as though they are rare and precious gifts. They are in fact possessed by many and in great abundance -- and what is worse, they aren't even important qualities. Humbleness, gratefulness, kindness, affection, loyalty, warmth -- all of which I lack to any appreciable degree -- are far more desirable.

The disgusting earnestness with which people like me pursue a chimera of importance. The arrogance of feeling like I owe the world something, that I have a gift to impart and that everything must be sacrificed to it. That simple and ordinary pleasures are to be cast on the alter before the idol of my own as-yet not manifest greatness.

Occasionally, briefly, I teeter on the brink of Douglas Adam's Total Perspective Vortex, but fall back into counterfactual, self-loving oblivion before truly apprehending my own insignificance, replaceability, profound commonness. And yet how instantaneous is the self-preserving will to uniqueness that reflexively kicks in! On apprehending my own averageness, I immediately congratulate myself on my own enlightened self-awareness, and at once place myself in a better and exalted class than the average! No! Resist! All subsequent layers of introspection, including this one and beyond, have all been thought of and secretly adored as marks of distinction by the countless impotent, self-preserving wretches like me! There is no escape from the oppressive divergence between self-willed image of oneself as special and destined for great things and the universal fact that even my most rare and precious thoughts and dreams have been and will be repeated and discarded and surpassed and rejected in endless echoes of themselves in the unnumbered average minds that hum and whir in futile self-regarding unison the world over.

Nothing is easier for “ordinary” people of limited intelligence than to imagine themselves exceptional and original and to revel in that delusion without the slightest misgiving.

Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin belonged to the second category. He belonged to the class of the “much cleverer” people, though he was infected from head to foot with the desire for originality. But that class, as we observed above, is far less happy than the first; for the clever “commonplace” man, even if he occasionally or even always fancies himself a man of genius and originality, yet preserves the worm of doubt gnawing at his heart, which in some cases drives the clever man to utter despair.
Dostoyefsky - The Idiot

New year in Paris. Took the day off to help prepare for the party. Wall-fly tendencies magnified by language barrier. Met a proper artist who produces diverse work and finishes it; a Maltese astrophysicist who hates the French and longs for British rule of Malta; numerous people who exchanged numbers wanting to show off France. Made good my sober escape when socially acceptable.


Did my dutiful morning commute across a misty, bitterly cold Paris to my friend's apartment for another portrait session. Appalling work, frustrating, unprofessional. Redeemed myself after lunch with another drawing in the café, which was at least flattering if not a likeness. I seem to be stubbornly, resolutely incapable of learning or progressing, and yet here I am willing myself on every day. It is evidently a form of masochism. Loafed the afternoon away in cafés then worked away in my little apartment on my sister's portrait, listening to Dostoyefsky again.

The end isn't the goal, it is the process that counts.

It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.Fyodor Dostyoefsky - The Idiot


Had a dream that I was unmasked as the selfish, manipulative charlatan that I am by a non-existent girlfriend who realised I was using her and did not love her. Characteristic of my relationships with everyone and it makes me sick.

Another morning portrait sitting, with predictably lackluster results. Must stick to it though and fight the temptation to throw it all out, not least because I don't want to have completely wasted my model's time and patience.

Bitterly cold outside. Went to the Louvre in the afternoon, looked without seeing at the floor of Objets d'arts that I'd never visited before. Went and looked at some Dutch and the Italian paintings. Desperately crowded. Van Dyke, Rubens, Raphael. Such productive artists, always working. Trying to motivate myself to be serious and devote real time to painting. Second-guessing whether it is a worthy cause to sacrifice sanity, career to. It is immensely selfish, undoubtedly. Craven desire to be recognized. But beauty is beauty and I want to immerse myself in it. Eyelids looking down, hands touching softly.

Felt dejected and in low spirits confronted yet once more with my own rank insignificance. Even great works are lost in the pantheon of the Louvre, so vast is the ocean of talent, learning, dedication of artists past. How pathetically miserable my own capacities are, and how contemptible that I should feel like I somehow owe it to myself and the world to push myself to explore and share my impoverished horizons. I felt a great emptiness and horror at the vast insignificance of it all, and of my hopes in particular. Tinged too with the knowledge that the feeling would pass and I would return to my default position of arrogance and feel like I have something rare and precious to give. Only in this deluded state can I make myself do anything at all.

Came home and worked on my sister's portrait, willing myself to work to the clock and just fill the time. Listened to Dostoyefsky, losing myself so far as possible in the romance.


Breakfasted with my art dealer friend over coffee and croissant, started her portrait at her apartment (badly as anticipated, but what can be done?) talked about the art world. Floated around Paris frittering money. Thought I knew my way around better than I did, but thoroughly disoriented most of the time and following my GPS rather than my nose. Felt lonely in company because I was reminded that I share precious few commonalities with most people I meet: I don't watch TV, don't watch films, don't care about cats or dogs, don't believe in spirits, don't drink, haven't any news to report, don't have plans, don't have a love life. Frankly, as Stendhal has it -- “A good book is an event in my life", and I came close to admitting it.


Hampshire to Paris this evening with the unerring directness of a man following a GPS beacon. All expectations precisely met, arrived exactly on time. No human interaction necessary; e-passport gates for the Eurostar, a code to the building and key to my apartment waiting under the mat. Extraordinary how at home I feel in these little rented studios. Familiar hum of the fridge, dreadful Ikea lights, mediocre towels. Set up my painting on a wine rack, listened to Dostoyefsky, had a bath. Could be anywhere, but crucially I am alone and independent again.

Breakfast date and portrait sitting tomorrow.