After 5 takes, I was finally able to record a reading of OPM74 (Being and Learning, chapter 5, pp. 107-108), and make some commentary. The process of recording again and again only to have the internet 'fail' me, was interesting, for sure. With each reading I was able to find a new insight into the meditation, and I have to admit that the one I arrived at in the final recording that was successfully saved is the one I believe was able to capture the meditation. This meditation is a transitional piece of work, as I'm moving from Plato's allegory to an exploration of Heraclitus by way of Aristotle. So in OPM74 there is some repetition of themes that have been taken up along the way, the most important of those being the allegory as a piece of blues. After reading this line again I realize that the whole undertaking, this entire project, is a work of blues insofar as it is a testimony to the power of persistence, to the power of steadfast continuity in the face of resistance. Because, as I have noted in my commentaries in the past few days, the foreboding of the other beginning arises when we realize that despite the congregations of thinking that we gather in, there is a much larger discourse within so-called 'education' that is not committed to the improvisational movement of free thinking, nor has much interest or even patience for classic texts of philosophy (East or West), nor in the questions those reading mediate. But one continues on, with the optimism and hope of a Socrates, and in keeping on with this spirit and mood in the face of resistance, one is making the blues!
Hence, in OPM 74 I write: "The foreboding is encountered here as the other beginning that initiates further movement in the face of this resistance. But this other beginning is always coupled with and grounded in the originary beginning, wonder, and thus, the initiative doesn't 'overcome' the obstacle of resistance but remains open to the possibility of this other beginning to authentically take up the Socratic work of cultivation, for it entails being moved by the creative initiative power of Being's processural unfolding which appears as the force of Love. Learning is initiated, as we recall, from an offering, from a giving that does not ask for anything in return but is, however, fulfilled in the mutual exchange...the exchange as an expression of what might be called the philosophy of Love."
Hence, in OPM 74 I write: "The foreboding is encountered here as the other beginning that initiates further movement in the face of this resistance. But this other beginning is always coupled with and grounded in the originary beginning, wonder, and thus, the initiative doesn't 'overcome' the obstacle of resistance but remains open to the possibility of this other beginning to authentically take up the Socratic work of cultivation, for it entails being moved by the creative initiative power of Being's processural unfolding which appears as the force of Love. Learning is initiated, as we recall, from an offering, from a giving that does not ask for anything in return but is, however, fulfilled in the mutual exchange...the exchange as an expression of what might be called the philosophy of Love."
3.0 - So, first, I tip my hat to my self from 10 years ago today, as I persisted and insisted on documenting by recording a reading of the OPM with commentary. Having lowered the bar considerably with 3.0, I have to admire that level of commitment, which, in some ways was more demanding than 1.0, in terms of technology. The greatest technological challenge when writing 1.0 was the printing of the OPM, which I did on a daily basis. The ink would run dry, so the collection of OPMs varies in color, with some being red, others blue, etc. Of course, the real challenge of 1.0 was waiting for the opportunity to jam with the ideas and to take my solos when it was my turn. The original 2004 project was initiated during WRCR's two week celebration of Coltrane in February 2004. So the spirit of Coltrane's improvisational genius inspired my writing/thinking each and every day. That was the sense of the "originary" that is denoted by the "O" in OPM. The originary that expresses the original and that originates. That's what this project is all about. It begins with being turning around by a significant object, such as the music Coltrane's classic quartet, then being simulateously captivated and inspired by that work of art, and, as a result, compelled to make something. This is how poetic praxis comes about. Methodologically, the writing of OPMs has the character of the dialogic character of thinking that Arendt identifies, although her reduction to the 2-in-1 does not entirely captures the movement of speech. While the number of participants has to be limited, and for me the max number is probably 11, it certainly demands more than a duet. But here it seems Arendt is operating within a dyadic dialectics, and why she interchanges "dialogue" and "dialectics." The point for me is that dialogue is less a back-and-forth and more of a circulation, the movement of the question. The power of the circular pattern of thinking appeared to me quite intensely this week, as I documented on Thursday when I described the realization my project, especially in the current moment, seems to remain committed to the epiphanic event that Plato describes in the Allegory. And a similar realization occurred late last night when I recalled my attempt in grad school to take up Hegel's Absolute Art. When that long dormant memory of a "failed" attempt came forward I felt resignation rather than elation. "I'm just moving in big circles!" This is how the above-mentioned feeling of foreboding is felt today: the sense that I am not moving "forward" but moving in "circles." And then now I'm reminded of what I learned from Glissant last summer, the flow from island to island (a metaphor for thinking in Arendt is the "island of thought" where we dwell for awhile). This is the exploratory movement within an archipelago, which is in some ways "circular." The point is that the linear (settler colonial, or imperial) movement is embedded in the over-valuing of the linear chronology, the error of mistaking natural growth as progress. Perhaps a closer examination of the biology will reveal the repetition of patterns that are expanding the original. The pine does not go anyway, yet expands outward, downward, upward all at the same time in all sorts of non-linear ways. Growth as repetition is not "progress."
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