Being-in-the-world
Throwness
The mind spins as it tries to unravel the web of contingencies tossed its way
No prediction, not in a strong sense
Only hope
Hope for authenticity
In the midst of irremissible angst
Of being-towards-death
Of concealment from the truth
Always elusive
Being, so says Heidegger,
is that which would know its ownmost potentality

How many of us even seek such a grand journey
Much less its end
Far too few, I dare say
 

Heidegger’s great teacher
Nietzsche’s nay-sayers,
Those who react
Never having the nerve to, finally, act

Who will become what one is
(The Hardest Task says Nietzsche)
First, one must stand for what one is
Have the truth of one’s convictions
Without allowing them to be codified into a system of Truth
(For, “Convictions are,” Nietzsche again, “greater enemies of truth than are lies.”)
One must go high into the mountains
Alone, like Zarathustra
“Man is more ape than man”
To be the man that could become—for certainly we still await this elusive creature—

One must first be for oneself, which, contrary to the myriad philophasters

Philosophical pretenders, philistines all

To be for oneself, far from being selfish—goddamnit, learn to read

Is the only way to be for those one loves, and would yet love
For who else, if not they, deserve to see one denuded of one’s masks

Who will follow one’s desires
Not your quotidian wants & perhaps in contradistinction to one’s needs, even
Let Antigone be our guide, as Lacan does in Seminar VII
Against Creon and the mandates of civil society
She chooses to bury the putative traitor, Polynices, her brother, her flesh and blood
(Having chosen the other side, by virtue of Oedipus’s, his father’s, fate)
As such, she is led by the dictates of the Gods and of family
In so choosing, she, as Lacan explains, places herself, between two deaths
Long prior to being hemmed into a cave behind a great boulder
She has made herself dead to society, to the “Nation,” that behemoth
All because she followed her desire
Not arbitrarily, but with the conviction of a saint, on her way to Dante’s Inferno
A saint, no saint
She acted
Thus she died
The first heroine of Western literature

I stand well aware that I preach primarily to fellow seekers
And, for that I am grateful
Yet, we must do everything in our means to increase our number
It is, as Derrida most certainly would have insisted, a sacred obligation
Most often, of course, we will run up against the walls of smug self-certainty
Yet occasionally, one will find a Being as hungry as are we
Hungry not for the Truth, self-secure in the Platonic style
(Yes, the very same fascist who would have poets banned from his ideal Republic)
But for the process
For becoming

After all, to paraphrase Foucault, what is the point of thought
If not to seek to what extent one can know differently that one has known before
If not to endeavor to perceive otherwise that one has perceived before
Let our motto be to know differently
Therefore, to Be in another way, than one was yesterday
For this and all the tomorrows to come
Thus it is that we are brothers and sisters in becoming and in love

*In order to be fair, it should be noted that the ideas, which drove this piece and the quote included herein were derived from: Martin Heidegger, Being in Time, Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols, Human, All Too Human, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960, and Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. II: The Care of the Self

©6/14/12

Have you ever in your life had such an experience as to have the entirety of your body overwhelmed
An experience perfectly summed up by the French term jouissance: an essentially untranslatable term
It indicates a pleasure the exigency of which is so intense as to all but fall into the pure manifestation of its opposite: pain
Such an encounter with the perfection of the cosmos is generally a singular event
It is an occurrence the very intensity of which discourages the anticipation of its return

Nonetheless, the human mind is not equipped to protect itself from such essentially transformative desires
If one is not careful, if one does not  master one’s conscious affects regarding this particular intensity of what must be the apotheosis of the sublime,
There can be no doubt that the unconscious will take the driver’s seat, as it is always want to do
It will drive one into a perpetual jouissance, a state that simply cannot be sustained without the very real possibility of crossing the line between quotidian hysteria to full blown psychotic ecstasy
One risks encountering the possibility of  the impossible in his world only in measured doses
Or, is it possible to have such faith in contingency as to be able to sustain the paradox of the eternal sublime without at the same time departing forevermore with reason, desire fallen into the abyss of madness.
© 5/25/2012

I do not recall when your face and my dreams were not as one

When you did not haunt my bed with presence

That time prior to the fitting together of our bodies, architecture of eternity, as if foreordained by the Gods themselves

Not only sexually, but just being as WE ARE

When did I not know that anticipation of a message from you, received as an oasis in a desert of salt?

Delivered as if from God Herself singing the praises of our Togetherness

It has always been so, and will always be

No matter what Objective circumstances may obtain

WE ARE WE

We always have been

Do you doubt it?

I have loved you since long before the day I was born

I will love you long after I utter your name with my final earthly breath

It is you with whom I begin my day

Before the sun is up, reveling in our Being, plain and simple

It is you with whom I end each cycle of the earth circling the Sun

We lay in one another’s arms celebrating the very fact of life, which is to say, US

No two people have ever been richer

None more ecstatic in living, embracing life’s cruelties and joys, alike

With you, I celebrate the earth and so much more

Things about which others are ignorant and about which most will remain

Our riches make those of Midas seem paltry

For they can never be taken from us

WE ARE WE

That is it

Anyone who would deny is a fool

I do not recall when your face and my dreams were not as one

When you did not haunt my bed with presence

That time prior to the fitting together of our bodies, architecture of eternity, as if foreordained by the Gods themselves

Not only sexually, but just being as we Are

I never want to forget it

With my last breath

I will call and you will hear me,

Wherever you are

For we are the INFINITE

KNOW IT!

©4/30/2012

 I am intoxicated by the site of you, as yet unseen, however well observed

Anticipate the scent to follow upon the glance and feel myself swoon

I feel my lips touching your lips, touching my lips, an infinite interplay

I envision you, there, on the empty half of my bed, now too large by half, and my visions proliferate until I have seen into WE

Your hair is splayed carelessly upon the pillow, then just as haphazardly over my chest, upon which, also, your left arm rests

You look  up  at me from  your nestling place, head and arm on my chest, your hand stroked by my own, attached to  an arm long enough to envelop you and retain contact with your fingers

Yes, the very same fingers, almost tiny compared with my paws,,  which not so long ago were precisely entwined with mine, as undulations, from roaring sea to barely windswept lake overcame us, as if initiated by no less a force than Poseidon himself

Then, still looking up at me, your neck cranes skyward, I move in mirror image to you, an exact reversal until…

Our lips meet through a smile, mine touching yours, yours touching mine, dreaming of the selfsame galaxy out of the billions out there to be explored, an infinite interplay.

©4/29/12