The past few days I have bemoaned the missed opportunity of fragmentary writing. So I've decided, for the foreseeable future of Being and Learning 2.0, to begin each of the commemorative commentaries with a fragment distilled from the daily meditation. Here's what I distilled from OPM 139:
"Faith, duty and humility form the core terms of the learner's insignia; what distinguishes the learner as one who is always ready to receive a teaching. This is why the learner is identified as one who has discipline. The learner is one who is possessed by disciplina (instruction, knowledge), and thus a discipulus (disciple) of thinking."
A few thoughts. First, I very much enjoyed distilling that fragment. And I'm glad that I have arrived at this place where, amongst the possible ways of commemorating a daily meditation, I can distill a fragment. Second, to be clear, I use the term 'distill' in order to describe the process that is not a reduction of what was written but, rather, an extraction from what was written. If whisky is distilled from a mash of grains, then so too the fragment emanates from the meditation with the most minimal number of the principle terms of the latter appearing in the former. This fragment was prompted by a single word that appears in OPM 139: 'obedient'. (The word appears in the sentence: "To remain in a constant state of learning is to remain 'obedient' and thereby humble before and upon the Way.)
Here a decision must by made, and that is to restrain from over writing. This is another way of registering my criticism of the experiment, which, ironically, did not completely interrupt or escape the hegemonic logic of the knowledge production system aka academia, because the terms of the experiment were not properly applied. That is, there were two rules: write each day and for a minimum for one hour. The daily writing was the core of the experiment; non negotiable and impossible to misunderstand. The hour minimum had a noble source of inspiration, inspired by Camus' description of Sisyphus' return down the mountain (after his boulder had rolled down) as his 'hour of consciousness' [when, presumably, he experienced some kind of emancipation from the daily toil of pushing the boulder up the hill].
And given this source of inspiration the point was to say/write something unique each day. Such was the goal, the aim of the experiment in meditative thinking. However, as I reflect back on the process in light of the mounting self-criticism (happening as I near the conclusion of the fifth month of this daily commemoration) I realize that a pattern set in with regard to the production of the meditations: I began to 'measure' them in terms of page lengths, with the writing of a single page being the minimum expectation that had to be met each day. The hour of writing became less about meditative writing per se (aka not an 'hour of consciousness') but an hour of writing in the sense of performance that was more akin to exercise and practice, which is something I have noted before in many of my commentaries; herein lies the source of the gnawing repetition that has also been a source of displeasure, despite my attempts to make amends for it in so many of these blog posts.
All this to say that while there is much I appreciate in the meditations, and while I very much look forward to revisiting the writing on Zarathustra that is coming, I do believe I have discovered where I went astray in the experiment: over writing, surpassing the threshold, ignoring the rule of restraint. For example, what has only occurred to me at this moment is the following: why didn't I revisit the previous day's writing and distill a fragment, thereby working in a kind of dialectical way, or in the way that is akin the the way musicians often work in the studio? Or, likewise, I might have followed the instinct I felt when I finished the experiment I had when I thought to distill the meditations into fragments.
Today, then, I move forward by taking up this unrealized potential of the project, and will distill fragments, thereby showing that it remains fecund and originary insofar as it continues to originate thinking and new writing.
[Return to the top: As a way to commemorate this commemorative post, I posted a pic I have taken just now of my hour glass, which my department at Hofstra purchased for me two years ago, with a postcard photo of Camus, which I believe I picked up at Book Culture in NYC...my favorite bookstore!]
3.0 - (Wed., Portland, ME) - I've noticed a pattern of self-criticism appearing in the 2.0, which is moving across the decade. Perhaps it's cyclical? The self-criticism bordering on self-loathing, where does that come from? Probably from the isolation of the project. One of the implications of the attempt to be originary is finding oneself isolated. No one reads this blog, and I'm not even sure I'm writing it for others. One has to be quite confident and strong to publish material that finds no readers. Perhaps it's a lack of confidence, actually. Perhaps it's the fear of being rejected, of being dismissed that holds me back from the attempt to produce something that falls into a paradigm or discourse communities. Hard to say. Because on the contrary, it's not for a lack of trying to form community with others, as I wrote about this past week. At any rate, I was a bit surprised that the process of recording a daily video was abandoned , and that at this point 10 years ago I was expressing frustration at the project, and trying to find a new process. Tinkering! This comes from...? Dissatisfaction?
ReplyDeleteThere's an irony, for sure, in reading the highlight from OPM 139: "the learner is identified as one who has discipline. The learner is one who is possessed by disciplina (instruction, knowledge), and thus a discipulus (disciple) of thinking." Is it enough to take pride in the daily practice? Was is at all about self rule, about will power? The will to power! There's the essence of the dialectic: will to power v. letting be.