Understanding Žižek

I don’t think I’ve ever understood Žižek better than I do after reading this long but pithy Q&A in the Guardian. A few select highlights:

What makes you depressed?
Seeing stupid people happy.

What do you owe your parents?
Nothing, I hope. I didn’t spend a minute bemoaning their death.

What does love feel like?
Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.

What is your favourite smell?
Nature in decay, like rotten trees.

What is the worst job you’ve done?
Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?
My birth. I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born – but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
That life is a stupid, meaningless thing that has nothing to teach you.

(via Jesse)