Technesse

I have been asked more than a few times, why I don't write down my thoughts.

Equally, I have been suggested to buy a memory storage-device (a kind of personal planner), which will keep track of my impending appointments and schedules, so that I do not miss any of these latter. "It is impossible that you will remember all your future commitments! This little device will remember them for you." But how will it remember? What if I forget to even look into the planner? Who will tell me to refer to the planner about things I have supposedly forgotten? If it is necessary that I should remember here, if my memory is left alone here, then I will dare to remember my entire schedule. Away with the planner!

Technology here as elsewhere quantifies memory. In effect it says, "You should remember only to look into this device... the rest the device does for you. You do not have to remember all those excessive details about your schedules, which is hard and cumbersome for you to remember!" But who says memory works this way - that it has quantitative limitations? Even if it has these limitations, are these limitations been tested? Isn't the limiting line drawn by this technological device, at best, an arbitrary estimation? Arbitrary and seductive, that it seduces the present-day lazy ones to "adjust" their limitations to the line prescribed by this device. What started out as a cushion, an auxillary, an extra-padding, now becomes the combatting device!

But this is not limited to "technology" as in gadgets and electronics. The majority of mankind has always been "technological" even before gadgets were invented. How else does one explain the amazement with which one gapes at a math wizard, who can multiply two six digit numbers in the blink of an eye? Is this amazement not that of a softenend mind which claims appreciation of the other as the consolation of a self-defeat? What next? - writing because one has to think?

Fine line

Sometimes I have a fertile thought, impatient to gush forth. I feel I cannot wait to give birth to it. However, sometimes I block the thought, I distract myself with trivialities and neighbors. Then I grope for the idea again. Where is it? Where is the vigor? Have I lost it? I take a break. I indulge myself with life. Then when the scales are balanced again, I approach it with sobriety. The thought appears many in number. And to my great surprise, the treasured thoughts have become richer, more powerful, more cognizant of themselves. They are no neophytes anymore! They want to come out and take form, but with poise and dignity. Their dances are more rhythmic, even though they are just as fertile as before. They work with me, they do not torture me to let them out. And when they arrive, they drop like pearls! They are the metaphors of my life!
But behold! If I hold these thoughts back, and let them pass through me untapped, they turn out to be old-naggers. They whine that the world has no place for them, and that they are too good for this world. They demand an eye at the back of their heads so that they do not have to squint too much into their past. They become nostalgic pirates!

Yes, thoughts too have their childhood, youth, and their old-age. But a thought can have only ONE of these in its lifetime, not all three of them. It's a fine line.

Moral?

Go under!

What is left now for you to do, except to follow the tunes of that inner jingle which makes you the solitary? Why emerge into the surface before that ceremony is completed? Are you too curious? Or are you too scared that time will fly by without you? Is that even possible?

These surface creatures can detect the need of your inner path, and for that their wisdom is beyond their surface. They reject your sneaky appearance -- 'you cannot be one among us, if the timing is wrong!' they say. 'Go under and beneath, and emerge when it is time for you -- we will meet you there, perhaps in a different form than you see us now'. Why do you blame them for not wanting what they do not deserve? Don't you know the moon wants to shine only when there is no sun? Can you blame the moon's modesty? Is it true you are in love with a pompous moon?

What are you afraid of besides the exploding gush of your own heart? Why do you scream "Aaahhh!" when you are the pin prick yourself? Are you a watchman who cannot stop looking at the clock?

Forget about the arrows of time -- only then will you grow!
The world will wait for you -- eagerly for your show!

Portraits

There is a typical feeling, a flavor to one's overall experience. It is what one 'gets out of' one's experience, and it is what determines one's experience too.This feeling summarizes the story of one's life, its tempo, its music, its crests and troughs. To wit:

>> The tragic ones: They feel that they never get what they deserve. And there is truth to this feeling. They come periliously close to the prize many times, but some accident or the other takes the better of them, and they end up settling for something which they believe betrays their inner greatness. Second-prize winners! (The intelligent sensitive schoolboy can't figure out why the beautiful girl he has a crush on, is busy flirting with a rich flathead against her own better judgment). They sniff out imperfections in others -- even though this does not deter their commitment to others -- just so that they can feel incomplete again. Around them everything becomes tragic. They always feel this discordance between the inner and the outer. They constantly scream out loudly, but no one can hear them. This is their tragedy, which is completely rounded/contained in itself -- which means they cannot speak about their inner Angst with others, or share this tragedy with someone else to ameliorate their pain, without feeling betrayed by the others. The wise among them accept this tragic fate of theirs, jusfitifying this fate as what belongs to the elite and the selected. And thus they come to have pride in themselves.

>> The lucky ones: They always get more than they deserve. Procrastinators who get the work done! They have a knack for timing; not the most diligent, but the most effective. Women like them. By hook or crook, they find a solution for everything. Selective sense of hearing; not interested in saving the world. Their typical experience lacks depth, but it is practical and pleasant. Always seem forgetful of suffering. Do not know themselves, but that does not matter! Around them everything becomes oblivious and light-hearted.

>> The perfect ones: They always get what they deserve. But their trick is to limit themselves, willingly and hence arbitrarily. Meaning: they do not mess around with what is alien and foreign because they respect their limits. But they respect their limits, because they do not want to mess around with the alien and the foreign! A self-contradiction! Which they sanctify as a desire for self-knowledge... Good at drawing perfect circles! Good at squandering a lot for gaining nothing. They radiate because they burn out. They donate because they inherit. They can cure because they bite. Champions of rebirth - they live because they have already died. The feminine. Around them everything becomes divine.

Crack in the ark

Everything he knew fell by the wayside. He proceeded to engulf himself within the austere gates of solemnity, hoping to submit to the blind dictation of inconsummate shrieks. Suddenly the gates opened, and he was greeted by the fluffy entrails of non-gravité, even though he had fallen into autumn inside his head. He sprang about as he walked, but with jerkless knee. Stirring the whispers as he did, he lent his ears to the sweet music of solitude, adding a note with his waving hand as he blew the trumphet of his rebirth. The monotonous ticktock was reset, and he moved its hands with the beat of his rhythm. His past was shut behind him, except for those brief moments of kaleidoscope when the former struck him with bolts of lightening, as if it cut though an imaginary key-hole. Now he restrained himself with no other soul, but he lived for every spirit, announcing his blitzkrieg on the whole as he did. Under seizure, he commanded a caesura with homo natura. All his ukases were now offset by a duration of silence...

Heidegger's muse

Heidegger dares to think the 'unthought' in other thinkers. But at the same time he points out that the more original a thinker's thought, more the unthought in him, the more he fails to comes to grips with what he thinks. Heidegger's thought, in this sense, may be termed un-original - it does not allow itself to leap into the fertile patch of obscurity. His thought abandons a certain kind of unreflective innocence - it is almost too serious, too morose, too self-absorbed, too proud. And for this very same reason, his philosophy opts the path of safety; it always makes a safe bet, because it first wants to secure for itself the second best place from which it then hopes to aim for the stars (if it can hope at all).

But this passivity is also the 'woman' in Heidegger's thought, which says, "I cannot love but I want to be loved." The latter, more than anything. This 'woman' refuses to be tied down, almost to the point of being promiscuous. She jumps from one nook to another, eternally afraid of being 'pinned down', since to settle is to enter the very unthinking-domain of creative obscurity. She bails herself out of every situation that might define and limit her. (Why? Because she has already limited herself in a deeper sense?) She washes her hands off the risks of existence. She wants to be free, out of irresponsibility.

Limbo

The mere thinkability of a thought is not a proof of its truth. Nevertheless, this very thinkability makes the thought irrefutable. So it is with the vestibule we call life - irrefutable, but not yet true.

Our venue

What a curious phenomenon it is to see the living ones scavenge the remains of the dead! Waiting for our geniuses, writers, and leaders to die, we excavate our spoils, not sparing their secret diaries, intimate details, drafts and undelivered performances. How much we do not believe in an after-life! We gossip about them, slander them, appraise them, especially since our voice was choked when the "voice of our generation" was still alive and speaking. And all in the name of respect for our heroes - bad manners with a clear conscience! Like the vulture which prefers to have a bald head, devoid of feathers, to avoid spattering of blood as it feeds on its dead carcass - we prefer to be ugly than have a bad conscience! We live only as spies, and hence inspite of our lack of right to do so.

Violence of philosophy

Nietzsche achieves the thorough-going self-contradictory nature of his thought - by means of which he earns, in truth, his right to criticize philosophy, and criticize it inexhaustively - by means of compromising the innocence of his reader. This compromise appears as Nietzsche's unpleasant need for self-criticism, that is, his need to retract instinctively what the uncritical forward impulse of his life puts forward. Why? : In search of an innocence not condemned to forceful retraction.

Sur Bataille

The prodigal submits his work to the world and remains silent, as he has to be. What that work is, Who the author really is -- regarding these the genius keeps silent and lets the course of things take its toll. And this out of modesty, out of abundance, out of style. -- General Economy

The average great man (ex: a scholar) imposes his work onto the world, and proceeds to "clarify" it or himself. He speaks where he has to keep quiet. He always feels that he has inadequately expressed himself in his work. (Consider the feminists interpreting Nietzsche: "Nietzsche is wrong here. Not ALL feminists imitate men... look at us!"). He says he started to compose after his inspiration already had whizzed passed him. He says he is too profound even for himself! His clumsy footnotes are more important than the main body of his work. He has a rejoinder for everything -- he mistrusts the imagination of his reader. Hence the scholar, the laborer, the working class. He hides behind the purdah and chooses to remain silent when he ought to speak. -- Restricted Economy

Spot-lights and dark-spots

"Why this stupid knowledge of the impending hurricane if we cannot do anything to stop it?"

"Doesn't this knowledge show our baseness... doesn't it mock and ridicule us, as we stupidly wait two days in advance as some other part of the world get hit by it?" "To report and move on!"

"Why are the news-channels so worried about the few hundred honeymooners in Cancun?"

"Aren't we better off without this knowledge, we spies-of-nature?"

"Dinosaurs were wiser than us... they lived and got extinguished royally"

"Why tabulate nature if we cannot totally control it?"

"Isn't it obvious that we can never completely subdue it?"

"If we didn't think that we were superior, that the process of nature culminates in us, we would not fight against nature.... we would happily give way to better and higher creatures!"

"This doesn't mean that we happily surrender to any calamity approaching us... Here, it is the question of a quality of existence ... of a certain nobility"

"Why the placid indifference, which makes us neither animals nor Gods?"

"Our arrogance! How badly we need to be slapped!"

-- The frustrated but passionate rants of a friend. Not romanticism. No tree-hugging, love-for-all philosophy. Calling the bluffs.

East is east; West is west (Written on the cusp)

Globalization is the latest form of the white race's unscrupulosity. Another of its prejudices, which it knavishly deems is "good for all", despite the self-proclamation of the dimming of its own lofty radiance- nothing but a strategy of dumping on others. But who are these "others"? The Orients, the Africans, and everyone in between. Why do these others agree to be dumped upon? But do they have a choice?

For instance, what defines an Indian? None of the popular tags designating some cultural virtuosity! Rather, what defines him is a kind of profound non-awareness about himself, of his own capabilities, of his profundity and his stupidities, of his limitations and the powers of his arsenal, and sometimes of his own greatness. He is waiting to be defined - that's his definition - and he has been waiting for centuries, in a kind of sheepish innocence, hoping that this innocence about himself will redeem him. The others - Africans and the Orients share this characteristic of innocence with the Indians, to a greater or to a lesser degree - and this innocence is precisely what the westeners have lacked. Why? Because they could not afford to be otherwise! You see, it is a question of economy, of give and take. Because, at some point in their history, they gauged that the inner-greatness of their spirit was not all that great, the westeners had to limit themselves, and thereby become aware of themselves. In fact, they limited themselves only to be aware of themselves! A closure just for the heck of it! They sought death before they died. It was on the pangs of this irony that the Western culture and philosophy came into being -- indicating that their culture and philosophy came into being only after their race was on the decline. The "decline of the West" has a prior decline, which has perhaps gone undocumented -- just like the decline of the Orient and the African race have gone undocumented. A speech where no writing has reached! The only difference, then, between the two sets of cultures is that it was only the west, in a defining historical moment of existential inspiration, grasped itself in its decline, took measure of its own scopes and limitations. A Kantian operation before Kant was even born! A re-birth before death!

All this goes to show how comically inappropriate the ultrasonic bells of technology and globalization are for the non-western man. Of course, it does not matter since the latter will never hear this inappropriateness as such in his being, since he does not have anything within himself, which he himself has sized up, to compare this external noise to. He deposits layers and layers of smuggled gadgets on his undetermined essence, frittering away in decaying innocence. What unseasoned processes happen behind the smoke-screens when an Indian becomes a software engineer!

Where coyness is required --

I had a philosophy professor who walked into the class once and said: "Let's confess: we are not and will never be as good as a Nietzsche or a Kierkegaard or a Hegel. Our levels are somewhat below. So now let us proceed and discuss their works!"

At this point I had a series of reactions which I rehearsed in my head:

"Speak for yourself, missy!"

"If we really are not as good as these guys, then why bother discussing their work? Why pretend that we fathom even a word of what they write? Why not concede that they write for themselves and then sing our own songs, even if no one listens to them? For no one listens to them either... hehe..."

"How happily you believe in degrees of goodness - 'we are not as good as [them]' - as if you are initiating us to the secrets of the wretched, as if the latter deserve their happiness too... Isn't it true that even the presumed readers of these people's works are also on the same level as these people, that there is only an absolute understanding of them, corresponding to that sublime level where no words can reach, and that the half-way understandings of the average have no reality whatsoever?"

"Can you show some modesty please?"

Then I was briefly woken up from my imaginative musings by these judgmental words from the one person who was actually speaking in the class: "Nietzsche... hmmph... if that sort of surrender to nature and appeal to child-like playfulness appeals to you....!" Well.

I went back to my dreamworld to raise a few more questions...

Creating out of nothing...

Experimenting with oneself brings about periods of intense creativity: One confines oneself to regimented diets, regular habits, isolated wintery walks and controlled sitings; One disciplines oneself against one's playful (now seen as "childish") and frivolous instincts, channeling these energies, almost forcibly, into a particular direction - the direction of one's chosen artistic endeavor. One has to - for one has chosen this art itself out of disregard for one's instincts - one does not believe in their frivolity anymore, one mistrusts their happiness, although previously it was the joy of precisely these instincts that created one's being. This is what happens when one's being has been internalized - one is subjected to the almost-mechanical rule of economy. One does not squander away; one preserves - A Buddha of self-severity, an artist who creates to live, out of nothing, out of death.

Many artists have created this way: They pay internally, often indebting oneself forever, almost out of guilt, for the sake of creating something for the exterior -- ex: one creates love, and sometimes even a life-form which one wants to love. But can one love now without comprising one's artistry? Can one not lose what one has created? Can one break out of the clutches of economy?

After-thought (Preface)

Through Nietzsche's writings one can comprehend better what other philosophers said - not a process of making sense, but comprehending nonsense!

2 thoughts

On Nietzsche:
1. It's a typical misunderstanding of the naïve to suppose that Nietzsche's main polemic was directed against philosophers. Nietzsche could care less for philosophers and the history of their "tradition" - a testament to his honesty and "realism," to the fact that his investigations were held in the absolute vicinity of (his) life and its pulsating movements. But this does not change the fact that Nietzsche himself was "philosophizing," a term to which he then obviously wanted to give a new meaning. Sure, he had something to say about (or against) philosophy, but this polemic is only an off-shoot of his main concern with morality as the slanderer of life. Morality, as he encounters it, is the name for the existential problem facing contemporary existence. If Nietzsche were writing during the time of Ancient Greeks, he would have still philosophized, but with a slightly different spirit, perhaps with much more joy and innocence than he could afford during his actual time (the meaning of "untimely meditations"). Religion and philosophy are subjected to hammering in his works only insofar as they naïvely subscribe to moral evaluations. This hammering is an off-shoot in the same sense in which "consciousness" itself is something of an off-shoot, a late and a relatively imperfect development in the progression of instincts. Nietzsche's writings delve into the very profound, yet changing, quandaries of existence - a testament to his so-called "existentialism" - irrespective of whether "philosophy" - previous or contemporary - affirmed or denied existence. This is the meaning of Nietzsche's a-historicism, the very endlessness of his polemical works - he would have produced his works even if there existed no philosophy before him, which is not what one can say regarding a Kant or a Hegel, who are so much dependent about a certain tradition of thought. Tardy "scholars" who take what Nietzsche says to be a version of "relativism", "nihilism" "naturalism" or dismiss him because he is being "self-contradictory" are confused about themselves. Nietzsche's writings, in one sense, exhibit all these tendencies, but they also exceed these latter. His writings thus breathe the air of life. They exist...!

2. Another proof of Nietzsche's a-historicism - the lack of technical language in his writings. But he does not just present a common, everyday language without making this language undergo real, life-like mutations and variations. When these writings are recast in a technical mould, as if this recasting does not change the nature of what is said, (which is another naïvety of philosophy scholars), then what emerges is an isolated philosopher, who has nothing to do with life, who thinks he has attained the right to abstract from the latter, preserving the purity of his philosophy from all "ontic" considerations. How a change in style of writing results in a different philosopher! A blot, to be more precise! This philosopher we call by the name - Heidegger. Heidegger - as a result of a profound confusion about Nietzsche's writings, about the importance of how Nietzsche said what he said.

United Colors

Ever since his inception, man has tried to woo his woman. He fought battles and jealous desires, created artworks and nations, sang poems and laments, and sacrificed his wealth and his health. He had to, for women are loftier creatures - more subtle, more seductive, more beautiful, more graceful, more lighter, nobler and higher, at least according to the order of projection of things. In his innocent state, man sometimes even wonders silently whether women even walk on feet, whether they do not just glide away over thin air, whether they even cough or sneeze. How many steep mountains man climbs, how many inner demons he scares away, and how many stormy seas he swims - only to compensate for his lowliness, to bring himself up to the level of the woman, to seem worthy in her eyes! Like a monkey or a slave hoping to please his queen!

This gender warfare is translated into a curious racial warfare in the modern day. Consider the relatively high number of inter-racial couples under these qualifications - the man belongs to a non-white race (either Asian or African) and the woman is white; AND the non-white male is either a celebrity, or a rich tycoon, or is extremely handsome, and the white female is not necessarily someone the whole world has caught sight of, before she entered into her famous alliance. Kofi Annan, Tiger Woods, Rajiv Gandhi, Imran Khan, Bruce Lee, Sidney Poitier, Zakir Hussain to name a few - were (are) all exceptional men who were the best at what they did, and were perhaps the best their native cultures had to offer to the world, and who were (are) all (incidentally?) married to white women. (Now, there may not be any suggestive pattern behind this phenomenon, but then there just might be). These men were the best their respective cultures had to offer to the world - this means that these men necessarily stood out from out of their own cultures, they, quite literally, overflowed or superseded them - in search for and attracted to something other - in this case, something seemingly lighter (in every sense of this word!), loftier and holier, in the same way a man has always, quite naturally, sought and fought for his woman. Therefore, in this example, it is not so much that men are attracted to their women, but more that exceptional men of non-white races, due to a natural propensity, sought out women of the white race, even if the latter were not so exceptional. It is as if the outstanding credentials of these men serve as compensations for the racial difference! Another order of projection of things! Well then. One has to ask whether the female gender can be compared to the white race as a whole whereas as the male can be compared to the non-white races. A cultural question!

To the naive and the sentimental

The confrontation and the critique of one philosopher with another betrays and hides a sequence of profound confusions - especially if the philosophers in question belong to different generations. For, if consistently thought out, no philosopher is refutable. Every philosophical doctrine about the world, and against it, are true within the limitations of a certain given perspective - the feeling that one is right about oneself and about one's beliefs cannot be dispensed with, even if one's belief about oneself changes. This self-feeling then has its right too!

For instance, Kant did not "refute" Hume's skepticism; he was no more "truthful" than Hume, but at bottom one reads Kant more than Hume because Kant has come to capture the spirit and the mood of the generations that followed him (a mood of a certain serious gloominess tempered by cautious restraint, I might say!). Or as I say I find Kant more "tasteful" (in sentimental scholarly circles, more "profound") than Hume. But I also read Nietzsche more than Kant, although Nietzsche in many ways is more playful, more joyous, and hence more closer to Hume than to Kant.

To give an example of how enormous and uncharted this field of underlying confusion can be: One of the mostly-unconscious issues with respect to which most of these philosophers wrestle with is whether or not there should be a distinction between (their) "life" and (their) "philosophy" or between "reality" and "thought"; and if there is a distinction, how can the line between the two be unambiguously drawn. This question plagues many of these thinkers (Wittgenstein), and if it does not directly plague their own thinking process, it will play a sleight of hand in determining how their successors interpret them (ex: how the early-modern writers like Leibniz, Descartes, Spinoza appear archaic and irrelevant to OUR post-modern life). Wittgenstein, who was more aware of this particular issue than many, sought in his earlier work to clearly differentiate between "life" and "philosophy," and by doing so, sought to completely eliminate the latter. However the bunny popped up again, like a shadow which kept following him until he decided to be a philosopher again! (But if there is no distinction between the two, how would thought (philosophy) get its material, its "phenomena"?) Nietzsche was not so naive. He sought to entangle philosophy and life in endless crisscross ways, constantly denying any clear distinction between them. In fact, his whole polemic can be read as against those philosophies which sought (unconsciously) to rise above the sphere of life (which presupposes a clear distinction between the two), to transcend, comprehend and comment on the latter. Nietzsche found a place for philosophy within life, and for life within philosophy. Heidegger, his interpreter, unhappily does not see the struggle of Nietzsche's polemic. He brings his own set of assumptions, unawares, into his study of Nietzsche, and like most others his assumptions too (more than any others') tries to find a unique place for thought in spite of reality. Hence he reads Nietzsche's so-called "perspectivism" and "phenomenalism" as aspects of a subjectivist line of thought to which Nietzsche belongs with the likes of Descartes. What do we get? One more instance of confusion. Now, all of these three writers are "right" in their own ways, given their presuppositions. But to clarify these latter one needs another polemic. And so on.

Strategies

To wit: Why does one write? What goes through one when one writes? Is writing an apology? - Perhaps, to write about precisely this question of writing, in a hope to slyly seduce its mystery through self-referentiality. Or perhaps, the author vindicates himself through his writing, which hence becomes his self-purgatory device - writing as an occasion and a confession. (A more playful version of this latter technique has become too commonplace nowadays - I encounter many bloggers where the author talks about himself and his 'experiences',(as if they are all worth talking about), deliberately and quite modestly, exposing his 'follies' and his presumptions, choosing his written piece as an occasion to laugh at himself, all the while conscious that he is appearing more and more endearing and adorable to his unsuspecting reader, and therefore quite immodestly enjoying this feeling of self-gratification). Or perhaps, writing represents the writer's ugly side; he writes to bare his thoughts, to get rid of them, since he cannot bear them - writing as therapy (another cunning strategy, since this writer writes because he feels that his tormenting thoughts are too noble for his current way of life; so instead of changing the way he lives (which is more of a challenge), he opts to expose his thoughts by writing, hoping either that his readers will readily gaze, admire and fathom his inner potentialities and greatness - which he himself does not comprehend - thereby exonerating him; or else, if this does not happen, he would have at the very least compromised the profundity of his thoughts by exposing them and bring them into life). An apology, an occasion, a therapy - 3 varieties of self-deception; Strategies of writing, from the point of view of a writer.

Riddle

I have some friends - doctoral students in philosophy - who have at times mentioned to me that their parents and friends initially found their idea of "doing" philosophy as a major or at the graduate level, quite ridiculous. They were looked at as if they were cyclops, or as if their third-eye had gone blind. "Why has our dear X lost interest in life?" they thought -"Strange asceticism at such a young age!" But doesn't this bewilderment hide a deeper psychological truth? This situation is similar to the one we have with respect to religion in modern times. One now looks strangely at someone who says "I live my life as my religious Bible wants me to!" or "Even your 'science' needs my God!" One looks at this person and wonders if he is not in tune with his present-day reality. One is presented with a psychological absurdity, a riddle, that is hard to fathom. "Why" one thinks "the self-deception, the self-reproach and retrogression?" Perhaps then philosophy too has met a similar fate - it has outlived its own death, it has become the derision of common sense. What else is the meaning of "doing" philosophy in a technological culture, if not nostalgia for a bygone era, a romanticism, a cheap mask behind which to hide oneself, a sun-screen for those gloomy ones? Fair enough. However, one has to ask now: has anyone actually lived his life in this modern, post-modern world?

To my readers

In reading a verse, in listening to music, in watching a play one shows one's artistry. Yes, spectators are artists, too! These artists do not refer back the art presented to something already inside them. Rather, they create themselves in appreciating an artwork - they grow. The reader does not project himself on the words he is reading, in desperation to find himself in these words. Meaning is not reflected by a mirror. Instead, he recoils himself, to detect in these words, something into which he wants to become - he looks for the foreign, the alien, the strange, the unexplored, like a warrior, like a cultivator. He plays with the signifiers, and does not so much grope at the abstract signified. The listener does not play a tune over and over again only to enjoy his own stagnant passions - for these are not passions if they are stripped of their vibrancy. Music is not opium, not auto-stimulation, at least in this sense. Art is not meant to make its consumer "be at home" in his world. Quite the opposite.

Chimeras or Danger?

The internal disintegration of Europe as a culture, of European peoples, is reflected in (not so much created by) the works of its major writers and thinkers, especially of Germany. Signing on to generalize I will say: it was Kant who first questioned an uncritical acceptance of the scope and promise of scientific knowledge. But if there was any discernable direction to the inclinations of European culture, one could see that science was only growing ever-so-unthwartedly to define the tastes and prejudices of European culture! So Kant 's questioning manages to only announce the imposing growth of a certain absymal chasm between reality and knowledge, between what man thought and how man lived. He did not provide a cure to the disease, but boldly showed its symptoms. The Jena Romantics made a brave attempt, but in vain, to overcome this chasm, and Hegel thought he achieved the seemingly impossible. But people who came after Hegel managed to mockingly laugh at him, especially because he died. The real Gods do not die, you see! Now came, repeatedly, philosophy's (I say "philosophy" not without over-simplification, since I have left out the adjective "European", which is not insignificant!) pressing moments of decision - either, continue to philosophize in utter isolation, betraying the wisdom of peoples and their existences, conjuring abstract chimeras one after the other, or else do something, act to fill up the abyss, take up the dangerous path! So came the procession of upheavels: communism, the political strifes and revolutions, philosophies in action, the whimsical scape-goating of races, the search for European culture, the Ubermensch, existential inner-turmoils, nostalgia, disillusionment - all in the lofty name of spiritual integration, all in an effort to prevent the banal leveling of races, masses, and philosophies. But the end-result: two world wars and the ever-widening of the engulfing chasm! The inevitable: Europe disintegrates. But this disintegration is also a work of genius - the scattered pieces, it seems, have found a way to avoid facing upto the two-pronged question of philosophy, by continuously wearing masks and vaporising into shadows! The opiumated genius evades! The question however remains as the vestiges of an echo : What is philosophy?

The Romantic

The 'Adagio' in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata has a series of movements that is repeated a number of times. In this series, Beethoven slowly builds up the tempo towards a grand finale, an outburst of climax, as if he is preparing the listener for a long cherished secret. But then the Romantic in him takes over. Just when he is about to reach the climax, Beethoven deliberately strikes a low key, almost in resignation, as if he is groping to return to some unknown point from which he has already gone beyond in one sense, as if he suddenly loses faith in the magnanimity of the listener to fathom his treasured secret. One can almost imagine Beethoven shaking his head in disillusionment! Strange pessimism! Or Romanticism - a belief in the progressive ideal coupled with a nostalgia for a lost origin... Thus spoke Nietzsche of the maestro: "Beethoven is the interlude of a mellow old soul that constantly breaks and an over-young future soul that constantly comes; on his music lies that twilight of eternal losing and eternal extravagant hoping..." In short, Beethoven lacks his present.

GO!

Back home, an alarming number of people engage in a kind of innocent mass-frivolity - a national phenomenon, you might say. In traffic, waiting for the green signal to appear, they restlessly inch their vehicles beyond the threshold point in anticipation of the go-light. I've always wanted to pick up one of these commuters, grab him by his shoulders, shake him up, and ask him: "Where do you really want to go?" But I knew he could never answer my question.

Right words, please!

Every culture has its own rituals, dances and songs... and its own words, which say something definitive about that culture. America is no different, although some nostalgic skeptics might point out that the modern technological culture of the US is really no culture at all. However, this issue is a different, yet contentious, one. And I have, instead, an evening date to catch, to scrutinize this issue right now!

A sample:-

As a part-time job, I will be teaching in a community college in a few months, and a few days ago determined to get away from my sleepy afternoon, I decided to visit the college campus. Since I had no other go, I boarded an intra-city bus which took me to the college, even though its campus was about 20 miles away from my house. I was impressed with the service, and aspiring to catch the same route number on the way back home, I hoped to know the bus timings. One of the passengers informed me that the driver might have a pamphlet which would give me the required information. As I was getting off the bus I had the following conversation with the driver:

I: May I get a copy of the route guide, please?

He: Say what?

I: The ROUTE guide please?

He looked at me intently, with a look of abandonment.

I: You know the sheet with the bus timings and everything.... do you have that?

A sparkle in his eyes, and Eureka !- he understood me! But at this point - and this is vital for the subtle ones - he did not just give me the route guide, but rather he clarified the terminologies first, and only then he gave me my trophy.

He first asked: You mean a SCHEDULE INFORMATION? -- as if the term schedule information has no synonyms, and has an extra-lingual meaning independent of how people might freely use that term. But this is typical of the Frei-landers to always seek the right words to execute the appropriate deeds, in a similar way an animal or a computer produces the right response only to the appropriate stimulus. Perhaps, a result of over-technologicalization (!), which prevents the constructed mind to step out of the limits of normal, normative discourse, in order to think and feel and say. The irony of the Frei-land! - which may be contrasted with the playful discourses and languages of the lesser-technologicalically driven countries like the old India - where one sometimes feels that people never mean what they say, and never say what they mean. And how could it be otherwise? - a word sometimes has the same word as both the antonym and the synonym! But has anyone fathomed this culture? A challenge.