I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of personal growth and the unknown journey of life, suggesting that curiosity and change are vital to the experience.
Michel Foucault's quote reflects on the theme of self-discovery and the transformative nature of life and relationships. It suggests that rather than seeking a definite identity or outcome, we should embrace the journey of becoming, which involves uncertainty and a willingness to evolve. The analogy of writing a book illustrates that the unpredictability of life adds value and interest; if we knew the end from the start, it might deter us from embarking on the journey at all. This perspective encourages an open-minded approach to both writing and living.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing change and uncertainty.
A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation [...] He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribed in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.
Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.
But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).
There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals.
Economic disasters or foolish wars are hardly guaranteed to bring about large-scale individual self-examination or renew the appeal of truly participatory democracy.
...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.
Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.
Pride is ugly. It says, 'If you succeed, I am a failure.'
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