The poet also struggles with esotericism of expression. But there are two kinds of difficulties of expression, and two kinds of poets: (1) those who think they have something deep to say and struggle to make themselves understood, and (2) those who don’t know yet if they have a self to express. The first are flyers; they soar above the common man. The latter are floaters; they try not to drown while the common man swims by.
Philosophy, I’m tempted to say, more than poetry, protects against false self-expression: delusion of expression, expression of a non-existent self, or perhaps merely more guarded. Poetry is more exposed. The way philosophy protects itself from false self-expression is simply that there is no such thing as philosophical self-expression. The impersonal language of philosophy prevents that. Self-expression begins when philosophy ends, and if one tried to express themselves in philosophy, it would never be possible to understand them, because everyone would think one were talking about them.