185

there is no balance book, no means by which partial
advancements may offset other defeats, no way even of knowing
what precisely is a defeat and what is, precisely, a victory. The
question is quite different and sets itself up as: has personalist
politics contributed to the social revolution? The answer is plainly
that it is has not, other than in a negative sense, that is, it has
shown us how easy it is to go wrong, but should we exhaust all
available roads before finally turning for our destination? It may be
the case, and we are sure it is, that some people had some great
experiences during the high days of the personalist struggles, it
may be that a lot of people feel that they have achieved something
remarkable, that they have been lifted up from one moment by
some wave of elemental social force and set down again in a
completely other moment; from the Forties to the Eighties is as
far from Kansas to Oz, from monochrome to color. They led a life
vibrant and tight-packed with experience, we are sure that this is
true, it is as true as the disillusionment of other individuals and as
true as the structural modification of this force which began as
popular protest and ended as equal opportunities law, all of this is
true, but it is not the point.

Something is happening here but you don't know what it is,
do you Monsieur Dupont?

So far we have considered the inescapable condition now we
turn our attention to cost effective individuality, we call it
expressivity.

Bowling green. Sewing machine.

You know, some of the pieces get to you, they are broken off from
somewhere else, against the odds they survive atmospheric burn-
up and pit your head like meteorites. You weigh them up, you
can't make them out exactly but find yourself muttering them
like pre-prayer material; or you make like you aren't even interested —
you toss them into a corner, and then you pick them up again
without even noticing. You can't get rid of this thing humming in
your brain. You have an attachment you didn't know about so you
need to dispose of it, you work it out to its end, achieve closure by following a special procedure, like that of the poverty of philosophy.
Or maybe just find something else palm-sized as a replacement.