Do you believe what I write? When you encounter a singular writing of mine, a "post" as it is commonly called, do you feel you know me, that one particular expression encapsulates all I think? Not only "all I think," but all I think that I have developed well enough to express coherently, to communicate a greater volume of what I think that is merely ready for communication as I determine it is so? Do you know what Anti-Dada is?
Each post is a snapshot, not even a narrative. Slices, I used to call them. I've discovered better words, more descriptive, more complex, more accurate. But to suggest any description I provide is a totality of my thought? No, not at all. A fragment, with barely even the fullness of a particular fractal. How could you develop a belief based on them? And yet, you could.
Even nonsense and absurdity provide fodder for beliefs. We don't believe just to believe. We don't do so to consciously direct our functionality, our capacity for finding the manipulativability of all we encounter. We do so to provide specific meanings in context, through subtext, collaboratively (without even consciousness) creating the superstructure of the world.
These thoughts followed in a sequence that began well before anything I've written, but to provide a partial sequence of events, certainly not the whole, the sequence was publishing "Light and Shadow" as well as "Art and Trust" then checking out My Fall Semester and reading Doc's "Summer Tinkering," making a comment, reading a comment he left recommending Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and then followed by reading the work (I've only gotten through V at this point, but certainly enough to generate further thought).
This provides a greater context that is true sequentially though certainly not true comprehensively even within chronological sequence. Rather than futilely try to connect more dots, I'll focus on the thoughts that arose while reading without specifying exactly what prompted their genesis, only ever partially known by me.
"Summer Tinkering" and "The Work of Art in ..." develop ideas I used to call relational thinking, but just as easily could be called associative thinking. For seemingly no reason at all, concepts of Judaic, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christian sin surfaced as of interest within my conscious awareness. The arising of a specific interest. That is not a statement of belief, mind you; it is the interpretive description I placed on what occurred.
What I felt was, "this is meaningful," specifically as a feeling. It was only upon assessment that thought became engaged. After the fact. My friend Steven, Once of Portland, has developed ideas related to Heidegger's phenomenology that I am vaguely touching upon, but I am drastically limiting what I understand of his thought within this expression because those are his thoughts and they are best understood within the context he created for them. My usage is only ever a distortion of their greater meanings within the vast associative network Steven, Now of Somewhere Else, has fractionally expressed in discussion with me (fractional because he can only communicate so much over a given time frame and I only have so much time to engage and communicate as well).
But that's to point out but one influence of a vast associative network of my own making, purposefully and through what I perceive but don't consciously process. In some sense, this is related to authenticity of experience. There may be a misconception that to only be partially aware is to be inauthentic. Or, that if one's worldview contains contradictions, it is a lie. Or, if confusion is experienced, it's evidence of misconceptions about reality.
But my confusion is real (props to Henry Rollins). Should we give more credit to the influences that contribute content, new associations between existing ideas, new muscle added to strengthen the integrity of thought, developed as such over ongoing consideration into greater meanings than first perceived, whether intended as such or not, becoming part of an independent organism of thought, the original conveyance incorporated beyond the author's intentions into the greater web of existing and ongoing thought, thought so deeply embodied over time that whatever was original in its perception and subsequent internalized genesis is buried beneath runoff soil and silt, new vegetations, incorporated through root entanglement, ingested as nutrients and distributed throughout the ecosystem called life?
Credit is due, but as you can see the attributions become so integrated over time as something unintended by the author that the author sees them as abominations (if seeing them at all) diverging profanely from original intent, as new life that built itself into something new, a different species arising from a mutative genetic adaptation best suited for the existing internal environment, or a new life that has strongly inherited its parents' genes and developed in such a way that it closely resembles the author's earlier developments within a given idea (perhaps the most surprising potential development).
That the concept of sin arose said something, but it was not a moral tale being told. It was a tale of integration of a comprehensive concept of sin related to the Ten Commandments. To violate one often means violating more than one in the process. Lying and stealing. Coveting and adultery. Arrogance and killing. Those associations are embedded within each commandment. And it is possible each is always related to all of the others in an associative (what is called indirect) sense. The butterfly effect is a rudimentary metaphor for the associative relationships that exist in the world. It gives up on identifying variables, ultimately, though the goal of science as an ongoing field is always to strive toward omniscience.
In the same way I chose to view the importance of the Ten Commandments in the context of associative thinking, all interests arise to tell us something important to us. What are other possible meanings I could create to identify what was valuable about the arising of the idea? Infinite. We're never without possibility in this sense and, thus, never out of ideas. It's a matter of activation.
It's also possible to observe and sit with such a seemingly spontaneous thought without interpreting it or making a judgment of any sort. Most of what we observe in such ways goes unreported. For example, I sat with the ongoing eruption of thoughts related to sin and never once directed them through assessment or judgment. That allowed them to surface continuously until I needed to refuel (fruit) and then continue afterward. It's possible to withhold judgment indefinitely if one considers thinking interpretively, morally, or ethically (or in any particular way which may also arise) as temporary breaks from the ongoing, lifelong observation of the arising of interests.
Without a possessive attitude toward what one experiences. If one perceives what one experiences at one time as "superior" to that which is experienced another time, then a judgment has occurred. The view of all that follows then falls within the newly created categories of better and worse experiences related to many unknown variables that combine to create the impression that one experience was worthy of attachment while the other is not, instead creating the impulse to avoid and repel it, to prevent even experiential contact.
We call what we like of such experiences our preferences. Preferences, as constructed through an interpretation of judgment, are integrated into our identities as part of "who we are" or our personalit(y/ies) or the basis of justifying our relationships with others. Good or bad, the moral interpretation of personal experience or of the other, need not be present throughout every moment. It is not inevitable except perhaps in moments. There is no permanence to it, no omnipresence that persists through the variety of moment-to-moment experiences. They come and go and are applied often without our awareness and insight into what we are doing when this occurs.
"I'd rather do this than that right now" does not diminish "that" as a future possibility. "That" is not condemned as bad and thus never considered again. To never consider what "that" means ever again denies the development of a more complex understanding of whether there is any benefit to "that" at all or if it should be incorporated into our lives in some capacity ... just not right now.
Our awareness is directed by our attentiveness so focusing intently on one thing means missing what else is present. While such a thing may become impregnated with a past, present, and future as it is in actuality in addition to what it has been and done and what it may continue to be and do, an observational perspective allows for a greater variety of perceived variables each moment. The beginning of assessment and interpretation prevents what is present from being present within one's awareness. It does not mean it isn't being perceived through the senses and incorporated into experiential memory.
The meanings of such perceptions are created through the existing underlying interpretive (intuitive) framework without our awareness. That does not mean they are "wrong" or "bad." They have existential integrity. As I have applied names to Steven, Who Was Born Not in Portland Nor Where He Is Now, I provide a story of his past and present. When I call him Steven, Who Is Not Yet When He Will Be, I orient him in relation to the future, giving him a future-based identity to incorporate within the whole of his identities as I perceive them.
As such, I am imposing upon him potentials he does not necessarily mean to project. They could be said to be true names or potentials, but they couldn't be said to be comprehensive names or potentials. Nor may they be how Steven, Who Is Not Where I Am would want to be identified by me.
But you can see how it all comes together, these slices. They are small, one-time associative salads compiled from the garden of life. They are also metaphors. They are also collages. This is collage-thinking, associations that expand exponentially as they are related to all the rest rather than existing as a hierarchical ordering of thought, accessible only through the rigidity of chronological sequence, through moral lenses, as ethical content, as related to original intent, as moments in a process, as specific functions in an ongoing equation, as more than I could ever communicate.
They are not, ever, final answers. They are morsels that could be made into a meal or a feast if combined with a variety of others, a celebration of life, a representation of a moment, or an association between you and I, an ongoing conversation, with my expressive voice coming through here, this blog, and your receptivity of my voice emanating from this blog. Inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale ...
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