Column__ONLY A MURDERER KNOWS OUR REAL NEEDS
Endowed somewhat casually by mother nature, I sometimes think there are more things I do not own than the ones I own. I am perfectly aware that I do not live up to women's ideal of an olive-skinned basketball player sold over to European cultural tradition, a connoisseur of heavy metal arpeggios. A transcontinental pilot of jet aircraft with both his feet firmly fixed on the ground. A broad-shouldered poet with depilated abdomen and spiritual inclinations. A tough barbarian spending his free afternoons on practicing his sensitivity. My favourite free time activity is very simple. Every day passes marked by trying to be more like myself.
I was born by the light of the new moon. It cannot be helped. My body requires continuation but this does not explain the fact that I am given a shirt two sizes too big.
I have a Dejanira’s tunic in my wardrobe. The front so huge that it could have been cut for Colossus, flowing sleeves, tails hidden in the legs of the breeches… Indeed, this garb is one big insult! Dear ladies, I have sad news for you: I will not grow any bigger! Anyway, there would not be anybody my size if I were any bigger!
As a matter of fact, no one has purchased me a third shoe nor bought me four gloves, no doubt about that. I have not been given any spelling dictionary either (a favourite way of rejecting suitors in epistolary romances). What is more, no one has manifested his concern about the cleanliness of the undersigned in buying me a gel for intimate hygiene. It may be that due to this glaring omission, my neighbours do me irreparable harm. Nevertheless, it makes me wonder whether I would treat a pumice stone given to me with that same thriftiness I would treat one bought on my own.
Women are somehow endowed with a certain intuition as to the significance of gifts. Your loved one has bought you a shirt too big for you? It may mean only one thing: your measurements do not satisfy her. The shirt is too small? Not a reason to be happy about either. Your chosen one is probably cuckolding you with someone who is of smaller dimension. And what about proper sizes? Do not get too excited. Your partner is probably a pedant – that is all.
Ties should be treated in a different way. A tie is generally a specific item of clothing. Indeed, it does not ornament anything nor does it perform any basic pragmatic function of an item of clothing.
Its sense of being refers to the poetics of dreams. In its allusive and exaggerated form, it unveils our nudity; nudity which does not stand any chance of rivalling a tie neither in size nor in colour. One could only argue about a cut. Hence, a tie turns out to be an embodiment of a hyperbole, an amplification. What could be said about a woman who gives us a tie as a gift? That she is an unfaithful pedant disappointed with us.
From among a handful of adequate gifts which mean what they are supposed to mean, I would point to a car. Those of our girlfriends who equip us with a car have most probably acted in a way they wanted to act.
As for now, let us bear in mind one thing. There is not a big difference between giving someone a gift and giving them a piece of one’s mind.
I once decided to ornament myself with a presocratic facial hair. How many condolences in a form of shaving items I received then! I assume that gifts are a sort of language which does not take a form of semantically codified articulation – whether vocal, textual or iconic since such an utterance would simply be too sincere, dangerously direct, in one word, it would amount to self-evidence which would exhaust traditional formulae of interpersonal communication.
Let us therefore pay homage to those indefatigable friends who are trying to improve us. To be given a toilet brush on a wedding anniversary – is it not a wonderful lesson of humbleness? It seems, however, that a certain group of artefacts should be excluded from the field of vision of this tempting, albeit hastily formulated theory. It namely revolves around gadgets of minor kind. Earthenware menagerie, crystal balls, fanciful candles, toiletries, shawls and scarves, hairpins, beads, aromatic potpourri from all sorts of dried flowers, vases, notebooks, pocketbooks, diaries, dream books, light and easily digestible books casually broken in the middle of the title page, sculpted caskets, engraved boxes, tasteful cases, CDs with music from the Andes and the singing of the sperm whales.
The examples are numerous. The tribe of donors is fond of haberdashery. In any case, the objects above mentioned seem to be devoid of any hidden meaning. Most probably a scheme has been devised against us. They intend to inundate us with an avalanche of insignificant details. You think: these gifts really come from nowhere. No one who is of sound mind would bother to strain their doubtful majesty in order to communicate inconvenient truths. You are mistaken. Our friends equip us with those unimportant objects to bring to our attention the unimportance of our own selves.
A present, as is shown by the French etymology of this loan word [présent], is something which we expect to place us in the crack between the past and the future. And we will have the honour of doing this astride; Indeed, it is the crotch which binds our earthly existence with infinity, this everlasting recap of minor inaccuracies. A present [présent] represents [représente] the presence [présence] of the spirit which makes it pointless to search for more or less complex cause- and- effect connections. The recipient of a gift is someone for whom the metaphysical discourse ceases to be a matter of life and death. To him/her its raison d’etre becomes being itself. I am for I am – says the recipient. Something is due to me because it is due. This paradoxical certainty that my existence does not require recommendation is only due to a gift which I did not receive for rendering some services. The game does not consist in fulfilling someone’s hidden dreams (which are often assassination ones) but rather in showing one’s disinterestedness.
From the point of view of the donor, the problem looks completely different. A present, a gift at hand, a gift of the presence, becomes a last-minute attempt, one’s last resort, a cry from the edge of the precipice preceding something monstrous and outrageous. Claiming that you lead a not so representative [représentatif] lifestyle and that you definitely renounce any gifts is no excuse. By renouncing a gift you do harm to the donor since you deprive him of an opportunity to express his/her opinion about you. Dear friend! It is not a gift which is good for nothing, it is you who is good for nothing!
A gift, therefore, represents our current appearance, points to its imperfections and makes us realize with blinding clarity who we could be if we were not ourselves. As for myself, such complaints are a great fun to me since it would be better for me not to exist at all if I were to be somebody else.
A gift, therefore, performs a function of a mediator between someone who awaits the advent of something improbable and someone affected by linguistic incapacity, communicative breakdown and strives to, on the one hand, heal the crack between one being and the other, between the giver and the recipient- not pleasant for those who are searching for any kind of understanding, and on the other hand, it shows how much we miss each other’s intentions and how far we are from each other.
As Derrida wrote in his sketch “Donner la mort” (“The Gift of Death”), the noblest possible gift is the brutal gift of Brutus. Only a murderer knows our real needs.
Let us therefore conclude this story with a moral: everyone who gives us something becomes similar to a Greek.
M.K.E. Baczewski
Translated by Katarzyna Strębska