Fragment 13

Karl Lagerfeld once joked that he loved working for the waste-paper basket. He loved throwing his sketches away, discarding them and starting again. Likewise, I think it was Verlaine who wrote that writing poetry should be like taking a deep breath, a moment of concentration, and then a release. Perhaps this is what Freud would have called Lustgewinn, or the surplus enjoyment of creating something and then throwing it away. The compulsion to repeat (Wiederholungszwang) is implicit in all creative acts. And more often than not, starting over begins with letting something go. I think we should all enjoy creating things and discarding them. Not everything needs to be shared, and sometimes the negation of the work is just as pleasure as its creation.