fragments

here are some fragments to start the new year. i’m limiting myself this year to only one day of each month for online activity that is not business related. the reasons for doing so are scattered throughout the fragments below.

60.
task. to deconstruct the watered down and uncritical formulations of the hermeneutics that have sprung up from rational egoism and that have plagued theology since socrates had the hemlock.

61.
the teleological suspension of ontology is what Christ did on the cross. by definition and paradox (hence love) the incarnation is the bracketing of divine ontology. everything life affirming follows from this. wisdom, love, peace. unfortunately humanity is too entrenched in egoism, indeed it is part of human nature’s constitution, why theological reflection has been plagued by platonic thought rather than socratic, why economic, political, mathematical, and scientific systems have always been driven by egoistic tautologies, why perhaps it’s too late for suspension of any kind if what it means to exist is to struggle against an endless wave of systems based on the legalism of exchange. an eye for an eye. the moment one is born into existence this ‘annihilation wave’ (FF4 reference) is there to greet and end innocence. and yet what it means to be is not simply struggle. what it means to be is not simply determined by nature. there is also grace. there is also nurture. there is the ‘tree of life’. and it is because of our children why suspension must be necessary. the dialectic par excellence? the relationship between parents and children, teachers and students, taken phenomenally, is the closest thing we get to the trinitarian dance.

62.
i always get so excited when i create/discover/unveil new thoughts and ideas. rarely will you read anything here that is a regurgitation of anything else. (unless i’m stealing something sarah’s said.) often times i feel authentically original. not that my thoughts haven’t been influenced by others but when i arrive at conclusions they are always my own. which is why you’ll rarely see these fragments sandwiched between quote marks. so you can imagine how i feel when months later i come across a writer or philosopher that had already developed the same thoughts i’ve had in the past. it kinda drives me nuts in an amused and ironic way. and yet…it confirms to myself that i’m not nuts. that i have a firm grasp of the discipline, and that without any formal philosophical training i’ve come to these conclusions all on my own. despite the surprise every now and then that some other philosopher, now deceased and held in high esteem had already developed the same thoughts i’ve arrived at independent of their influence, i am encouraged, knowing that clearly i’m on the right track, especially when my thoughts and writing every so often match up eerily close to some of the most influential philosophers in history. take fragment 61 for example. the teleological suspension of ontology came to me in the middle of a conversation i had at a jersey mike’s with joe murphy in the middle illinois. the idea is a modification of a kierkegaardian saying fused with some heidegerrean thought applied to phenomenology. i’ve developed a knack for connecting dots in the past few years. its somewhat like cooking too. you have your ingredients. independently, they say one thing. but together they say something completely new. not that i’m a master chef or anything. though the teleological suspension of ontology seems to have been mentioned in levinas, perhaps it hasn’t been used in the same way that i’m proposing. looks like i’ll just have to read myself some levinas now to confirm. to be continued.

63.
new thoughts do not come through analytical discipline. let me clarify. this is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. the former is found in math and science, logic and reason- strict description. the latter is not found at all, rather given. given via relation to the Other, in a moment of suspension. this phenomena is shown all the time on the show ‘house m.d.’. like i mentioned in the previous fragment, it is in something as mundane as eating at a sub shop, when communion is taking place, or in a moment where the ego has not filled the space, much like zoning-out or doing everyday chores…something is triggered. but the triggering is dependent on an a priori tension, a sustained tension that has reflection and care for the other in place of the ego.

64.
will is that thing with which our tolerance for tension is measured. love is that thing which allows us to traverse the distance measured.

65.
the human practice of denomination is a symptom of the super-ego. any man can be the father, but there can only be one mother; then why do the children take on the father’s surname. for that matter why do women take on their husband’s names? human denomination is like a stamp of the ego, a claiming of ownership, a practice in objectification, in self idolatry…as far as last names are concerned. denomination towards the divine is not something we could ever accomplish yet we attempt it daily anyways. we say ‘i am daniel’, ‘i am sarah’. yet those statements are more true than when we say ‘god is good’, ‘god is great’. Gxd names himself, indeed only Gxd can, ‘ego eimi’, ‘i am the one who is’. any human attempt to denominate Gxd otherwise is idolatry and projection of our ego. denomination is not possible for it reduces Gxd into a name and hence an idol. so then what, how do we come to know Gxd? that would be the wrong question. again.

66.
“ho theos agape estin.” if Gxd is love, is Gxd ‘is’ before Gxd [is] ‘love’? if Gxd indeed [is] love, does that imply that love can transgress being (is-ing)? it is from this hermeneutic that we reconstruct philosophy anew from the primordial givenness of love/Gxd. we can still salvage theology.

67.
5×0=5
if you multiply five zero times, in the end, you still have five. the five always existed, the zero does not negate the five, it only proves its existence.
at first glance the zero as a numeric place holder is like an idol. its a symbol that is without any value.
yet it adds value when you place a few of them behind another digit, like 1000000. so instead of the zero being devoid of value, zero is indeed saturated with it. it is not nothing, it attests that ‘nothing’ only proves all the more the existence of something.

68.
even in reading and understanding a native language we only perceive through a glass darkly. when reading we only come to understanding of the text by analogy via signifiers found in the symbols of an alphabetic system. in the end, ultimately, understanding is still only possible via access to a ‘third’ absolute language. the process of understanding is done through interpretation. and if absolute interpretation eludes, then so does understanding. then how are we to come to understanding? indeed that absolute ‘third’ language does exist. and it’s not math.

69.
‘an unexamined life is not worth living’ – socrates
‘an unexamined life is inauthentic’ – heidegger. that is…selfish, lost in the they, devoid of responsibility.
what causes examination is love for an-other. once we’re aware that there is a world outside of us, that there is an Other, care arises and we begin to have ‘authentic’ concern for the Self.

70.
the oppressed want freedom but what they mean is power. but the possession of power does not equate to freedom for power does not free but enslave. power is the reckless ego run amuck. power has no view of responsibility. only in responsibility is freedom found. the ability to choose to be responsible, to be resolute for oneself-being-with-others sets one free from the influence of the ‘they’ and powers that be. the only true freedom we have is the freedom to be responsible for it is the only interpretation of freedom that leads to being-free of the ‘they’ that oppresses authentic being.

71.
how do we learn responsibility? when we realize that we are not a solitary ‘i’. that the Other makes us. ok sure, but why should anyone care to be responsible? if we were to say to someone they are living selfishly and they care not, then what? leave them to their own devices and maybe one day they realize that suffering outside of themselves is real. until then they will live in egoistic bliss. responsibility is an inescapable part of what it means to be. if what it means to be is to be-with-others.

72.
the above fragment is why spider-man is the phenomenal comic-book example of what we mean these days as ‘hero’. ‘hero’ by definition is a sentiment that is given. of course the ‘hero’ par excellence is found in the incarnation of Christ. the strength of the ‘hero’ is found in weakness. a certain hesitant, unwillingness. even christ prayed to have the cup kept from him if possible. the suspension of ego is sustained by being so immersed in loving/relating to the other. when you’re so invested outside of yourself one does not realize one is being heroic until after the storm has calmed. those who seek heroism never attain it for the seeking comes from the self. guys like the hulk only get in on the action cause they know they’re strong. thats not heroic, its only deterministic. those who are unwilling and hesitant, and yet act for the sake of the other, are.

73.
“I want my son to know that people screw up, that nobody is perfect, that you can learn from your foibles. I want my son to watch “The Natural” someday, hear Roy Hobbs say, “Some mistakes you never stop paying for,” and know that it’s not just words in a movie. I want my son to know that you haven’t lived until you’ve fought back, that you haven’t won until you’ve lost, that you can’t understand what it’s like to relish something until you’ve suffered, too. I want him to understand that it’s the 21st century, that we sit around picking our heroes apart all day, that we expect them to be superhuman at all times, that we get pissed off when they aren’t, that it’s hypocritical if you really think about it.”- THE SPORTS GUY

74.
every once in a while popular music actually delivers solid lyrics that are meta-layered. one wouldn’t assume singers such as avril lavigne or rihanna to be deep wells of wisdom, but that’s the thing about wisdom, it often comes at us unawares and only in retrospect, thereby escaping the self-constituting ego. – “i don’t know who you are but i’m, i’m with you” or “i found love in a hopeless place”. these lyrics could not be more true.

75.
my brother was crying at my wedding. i asked him why. he said he was afraid he’d never see me again. i told him that was ridiculous. the last time i saw joe murphy i was helping him move in. later on over the phone he told me that he thought it was the last he’d ever hear from me again and that it made him sad. i told him that he was ridiculous as well.

76.
“when she looked at me that way…i knew i existed”- joe, super 8

77.
i am not ‘chinese’. by what definition am i chinese. by visual perception? biological makeup? indeed, if biology and heritage are more existentially relevant than context, community, and circumstance. i can say..i LOOK chinese. but by no means can i truthfully (alethia) say i AM chinese. because the infinitive “to be” means my existence is dependent upon me being chinese which is certainly NOT the case. but as it is, human beings can’t help themselves from compartmentalizing. it makes for better government, control, power.

78.
during this stage of my life it seems as if i’m as at odds with my peers as i’ve ever been. i’m coming to realize more and more that i share a consciousness not with those of my generation but with those of my elders. i’ve never related more with my elders, my teachers. i’ve never been as distant from peers. elders now regard me as their peer. peers regard me with distance. i can understand the difficulty, for it takes work to undo presuppositions. how i got here i do not know, only that it was given from an-other through tension so that Love might abolish any transcendent cogito. i can only give language to it now by recourse to suspension. this may very well be the paradox par excellence.

79.
task. to help those who struggle with understanding that it’s ok, i.e. the good will hunting syndrome. that ‘evil’ (tension) is a default mode of our being-in-the-world. that knowledge does not equate to wisdom. that peace and mystery go hand in hand. and that all this is paradoxically packaged within the phenomenality of love.

80.
the further we progress in this information age the more confidently we speak for we are emboldened by the seemingly infinite expanse of cyberspace and the mirage of having knowledge at our fingertips. indeed too much knowledge is presupposed, so that is all it will be- incapable of maturing into understanding as such. without knowing it we adopt knowledge from phantom sources and make them our own. we substitute hearsay for understanding. why do we believe that we know more than we actually do? we have become a generation that equates speculation with fact, and confuse it with doctrine and unsubstantiated opinions influenced by pervasive cultural ethos’ and moods. and then we get illogically and unreasonably upset when we are argued against when in the first place we have done absolutely no work of our own to test our unfounded claims. we will believe the published opinions of a fool, anyone with a celebrity platform, on it to propitiate their own egos, facebook and twitter updates that are by definition obscure at best, before we listen to the wisdom of a child, the lament of a widow or the voice of nature. we want to hear from spectacle and not maturity. entertainment value over wisdom. we are ever becoming more and more lost in the anonymous voice of the they that we may as well forfeit our existence and pledge our allegiance to..oh wait a minute, we’ve already done that. not only are we becoming less capable of forming our own opinions (a problem related to our notions of freedom), we’re becoming even less capable of differentiating between bullshit and originality. we rely on reviews or ‘industry leaders’ and are unable or unwilling to form our own opinions either because we are afraid of criticism which would make us fakes and cowards or we are a generation that suffers from extreme sloth so we choose pleasure over tension. all are sequels or derivatives and we give too much power to those whose opinions are iconicized in print or those who sarcastically deconstruct the world around them without any responsibility to it. its all about ratings friends. and of course all this is symptomatic of just how much stock we’ve given to this phenomena that is the internet. sure the internet has made life more convenient in many ways but it really has only made life on-line easier. it’s become easier to communicate. yes, but only communication done online. let’s be clear, there is no incarnational communication done online. as such our understanding of communication has been reduced to chats and comments exchanged in a vacuum. indeed some neither comment or allow for commenting so we’ve moved on from pseudo communication to an issue of control and the maintenance of anonymity. we need to take a long hard look at what it means to be or else we risk being neither here or there but lost in a phantom world or electrical firings and digits. and i have yet to even argue from the standpoint of presence. or responsibility for that matter. thoreau once wrote that he ‘went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately’. nowadays we have to get off the computer just to be able to begin to do so.

81.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.’”- Henry David Thoreau

82.
“if your being were (contingent, dependent) of the world, it would objectify (and mask it as ‘love’) you as its possession (ἴδιον, it would own you in this way); indeed you (being) are not (of the world), rather, i have called you by means of the world (tension, nature, evil), for this reason the world disregards you (clarified later on). remember the relationship (λόγου, from lego, gathering) which i spoke to you: ‘the servant is not greater than the lord of him.’ if they do not show me hospitality, they will not show you hospitality (they will regard you with egoistic objectivity). if they respected my wisdom (λόγον), they would also respect yours (that which was given to you, ὑμέτερον). indeed all these things they will do against you by means of my name (see fragment 65, on denomination), because they can not understand (have no knowledge of) the one having sent me.”- john 15:19-21, my translation. the greek text is so much richer than any of the watered-down translations marketed out there. its a dangerous world of uncritical and un-holistic hermeneutics out there. it makes sense why the bible is seen as an archaic, irrelevant text to some but there is more philosophy (the wisdom of love, fragment 46) in there than all of history’s writers have put together. however this now opens up a pandora’s box of aporias that are necessary to work through. some of which i’ve begun to tackle, such as the human tendency to project its ego, and the virtues of tension and suspension.