Winter, 1964 - 1965: Artist's Solution

Anais Nin says that "if one is not comfortable in human life, one dreams. But these dreams can be fulfilled and create a world that is endurable."

What better way to end 2012 than by dreaming of the world you want and then starting 2013 by creating that world.

Fall, 1964: The Self

Anais Nin writes: "It is from England that America inherited its taboo on the personal. To be interested in self-development, in self-growth, in self-education and improvement is inevitably a symptom of neurosis, narcissism, egocentricity. Never had the word 'ego' been so misinterpreted as in America. The dictionary definition is: 'The self that feels, thinks, wills, and acts.' It is always confused with egocentricity, or egomania, which is altogether another thing. The only virtuous state in America is a collective spirit. Humanism should be the result of such virtue, but it is totally absent. And what can a nonexistent self contribute to the universal? This great American persecution of the self does not recognize the egomania of competition, of ambition and greed. And this so-called non-self has resulted in a people who can be brainwashed more easily than any other because without the self there is no power of discrimination or evaluation."

Summer, 1964: Deep Disappointment

Anais Nin suffers "another deep disappointment, when I least expected it" when the film script for Spy did not materialize.

Disappointment is inevitable. It can occur at various levels on a daily basis. We set ourselves up for it by having expectations, hopes, dreams, wishes that don't come true. What is the cure? Should we stop having these expectations, etc., or should we modify them, expect less? Or should we control our disappointment by forgiving those who let us down, remembering that we too have let others down when we don't even realize it?

Spring, 1964: Fame

Anais Nin meets Marguerite Duras in Paris, where they talk of adapting A Spy in the House of Love for the screen.

Her novels appear in bookshop window displays.

She is interviewed and photographed.

Radio Canada records a program on her life and work.

Anais is realizing every dream she ever wished but says she is not made for public life because of her stage fright. However, she says the acceptance she receives in Paris makes her feel less lonely.

Winter, 1963 - 1964: Too Much Information

Anais Nin in this diary entry speaks of biographers and asks, "What race of men feeds on other's lives?" She is concerned with the letters that writers of her era wrote each other, filled with secrets and sacred trusts, that if they fell in the wrong hands, could make public what had been personal and intimate.

Anais speaks of historians in much the same way: "Many lies will be told, many inventions, distortions, in spite of documentation, as are told in fiction."

In today's world, with all the various avenues of social media, people are free to feed on their own lives, share too much information with anyone who will listen, tell lies, invent, distort, turn themselves into someone they want to be or wish they were, someone they think is better than themselves, someone they think others will find fascinating, interesting, a rock star.

What would Anais Nin think of all the boorish details that people today provide the world, the me, me, me focus that makes average people feel like celebrities?

Fall, 1963: More on LSD

Anais Nin is drawn to the fact that people understand her novels when they are under the influence of LSD whereas when not under the influence, this understanding eludes them. LSD could instantly open their senses and unconscious, while with other methods such as analysis, this opening was not so quick or easy. Many artists naturally have access to the visions, senses, dreams, feelings, imagination, invention, creation that LSD makes available to the masses. Anais feels that the real culprit is "a culture which made drugs necessary, a culture of false values, slavery to commerce, taboos in the dream, aesthetics and the senses, taboos on imagination and freedom of the individual."

Summer, 1963: LSD

Anais Nin experimented with LSD in the fall of 1955 under a doctor's supervision, and now, almost eight years later, she's meeting Timothy Leary and others, discussing the pros and cons of its use. Her experience resembled a "waking dream very closed to the states I reached by writing. I did not realize that America with its pragmatic culture had no access to this inner world." Anais says further that no one except neurotics and psychoanalysts paid attention to dreams and that many people had never been taught to dream, "to transcend outer events and read their meaning. They had been deprived of all such spiritual disciplines."

She ends this entry of her diary with columns "for" and "against" LSD.

For LSD: it's a shortcut to the unconscious, expanded consciousness, greater awareness of the unconscious self that children and artist have and is useful for those who've become out of touch with their deepest self. It can provide inspiration, creativity, imagination, spontaneity.

Agaist LSD: it should not be used carelessly by people seeking "kicks" and without supervision because it can be dangerous to people with heart or liver problems, and people should not drive, swim, or go to work under its influence.