OPM 91 is quite repetitive, and seems to repeat, almost verbatim, previously written sentences. I've addressed this as a matter of 'compression,' and have also described this repetition as like daily exercise or practice, where one repeats the same in order to both become increasingly flexible, strong and/or adept. Now, while this is a recognizable practice in performance arts and athletics, it is not the expectation for writing philosophy or theory, and as someone trained to be moving in a 'progressive' manner, which is to say, to be constantly and consistently building in a definite and coherent way aka making an 'argument'. Being and Learning is most deficient by these standards, and this is due to the confluence of the phenomenological approach and the phenomenon under description. That is, the phenomenon that is 'timeless' or persisting in a recurring manner. Something like the Eternal Recurrence of the Same captures well the phenomenon on Being that discloses to us our freedom which we take up in learning.
I have been having some technical difficulties with youtube, and I'm 'cut off' at 9 mins and change. This happened today. I was cut off during the post-reading commentary when I was discussing the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity at encountering the repetition in the meditation, and explained that this feeling overwhelmed me by the end of the year, so much so that I was inclined to set the work aside for some time; in fact, for too much time, and all because of this internalized criteria of what is deemed 'worthy' philosophical writing. The persistence of doubts about the writing show the power of the hegemony of the academia's expectations. Even after taking a year to confront and disrupt, if not negate, the hegemony of the academic criteria, the doubts persisted, even to this day when I read OPM91. I expressed this in the first take.
In the second take, which is saved in this video, I was struck at the end of the meditation by the following: "Here we recognize [Socrates'] doubt is the questioning stand that emerges from the humility of the Sage who recognizes that wisdom is not contained in their saying, but conveyed in what they say insofar as it evokes an estranging listening. Thus the poetic dwelling of the Sage is one of utmost humility…'Therefore the sage puts his own person last.'(Lao Tzu)"
I was reading that concluding section of OPM 91 I 'heard' what I was experiencing in the very reading of the meditation. I was being estranged by my own writing. I was experiencing an estranging listening. And I was humbled by that experienced, which is to say, reminded that if I was learning from what I was documenting and describing then I should let go of this 'claim' upon what I was writing as 'mine,' and, rather stay the course of phenomenology which is one of description and accounting for what is being disclosed, what is being shown. Somehow, strangely, I'd forgotten precisely what it was that I had written ten years ago in the same way that, perhaps, I was forgetting what I had written the day before, or days before, so much that the same message needed to be delivered again and again, almost in vain, because I was/am such a poor listener!
February 13, 2014 was the 10th anniversary of the original experiment that produced 363 phenomenological mediations, published as 'Being and Learning' (Brill: 2012). Each day between Feb 2014-15, I returned to the original meditations, and my commentary is documented here. And then, again, on February 15, 2024, on the 20th anniversary of the first days of the original experiment, I revisit and comment on a daily basis, once again.
3.0 - Circulation is one of the key themes of this project. The first line of the Routledge book, which seems to catch people's attention when I tell them is, "I teach in a circular building." That is how I will begin the book that will almost immediately start talking about Socrates and Socratic dialogue. But the first line will lead me into an exploration of thinking that goes around and around in circles but doesn't "go" anywhere, almost defying linear progress. The outcome of such circular thinking, which is dialogic, is meaning. This the point emphasizes in her description of Socrates. And that is what I want to emphasize from the outset: learning as the making of meaning. So there is an outcome, but what is different is the way it is achieved. Moving in circles. But moving in circles and producing meaning is what circulation is all about, repetition is the circulation that doesn't seem to produce anything at all. Rather it is a retelling, a reiteration, a reprise, da capo (in music). I definitely have the habit of retelling, as I wrote above, in an almost verbatim manner. I remember once teaching a graduate course and a student raised her hand and said, "You know you've repeated that line about 5 times." I was caught off guard, and embarrassed because she wasn't complimenting me! The sting of the criticism left me with doubts, especially because I wasn't aware that I was repeating myself. But it's a habit of mine, almost a method, to repeat and reiterate, retell and restate. Good teaching, but certainly not the evocative teaching of the Sage, is repetitive. That is certainly the case when you are building theoretically. By the end of the course I want my student to be equipped with at least 10 words/concept/ideas that they have more or less internalized. But the anxiety I expressed about in response to OPM 91 is very real and one that can haunt me on several levels. If I am repeating myself and sounding redundant I am not in the modality of the originary. Nothing new is being said. The anxiety of not contributing something new in general to the world is felt, for sure, but not as much as the feeling that I'm not building on the project, or worse, not in the project at all. And that is the challenge of this project of poetic praxis. "Make music and work at it!" This challenge is made even more challenging by the belief that the genuinely original improvisation happens spontaneously, and, further, that the occurrence of spontaneity happens through inspiration and captivation. One needs to be patient and have faith the the muse of Improvisation will arrive. As I noted yesterday, I introduced Improvisation the muse into this project last summer. I'm wondering if I will include her in my Routledge book. That would definitely be pushing it, but also fun! I'll probably write about her in the preface that begins with that opening line and will introduce Socrates as the main figure. Moving in circles, thinking from prison (Hagedorn, the building where I teach is not only circular, but was once a federal courthouse and the basement where we have classroom was one full of holding pens, i.e., prison cells!), and making music! These are the key themes that will introduce my book, and when writing about Socrates I will emphasize that he was visited by a muse who commanded him to "make music and work at it!"
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