OPM 195, August 28th Meditation (2004 & 2014)

The next two weeks of writing bring to a close the material that was not included in Being and Learning.  And for the next two weeks my commentaries will be focused on the legend that was composed during those two weeks.   As I wrote in yesterday’s commentary, it’s not at all clear to me why I suddenly shifted discourses and started writing what can be described as a legend, or a parable (although it seems too long for that category). [I can, however, with confidence note that the writing is of a kind that I will seldom do, as with the meditations that were published in-between the lyrics for Sam Rocha’s album LATE TO LOVE, which was released today.]   The shift will remain a mystery, and I can only speculate that it was the result of an epiphanic moment.  The shift happened spontaneously, when my mostly metaphoric and poetic writing was broken by a realism that somehow shifted the direction of the writing into a literary modality.   And as I wrote yesterday, when I read this material I can feel the influence of Borges, but also of Nietzsche, specifically, the writing in his Zarathustra.  No surprise, then, that this unusual two week writing venture begins with quotation from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and then, on this day ten years ago, unfolds as a tale of Nietzsche’s Zarathurstra before he climbs to his mountain cave.   That is, the writing is the ‘legend’ of Zarathustra in the time before the time that begins Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

How to make a commentary on a piece of writing that only I have access to? (I had thought to read this material…but I’ve become too self-conscious about making videos via YouTube.)   Perhaps I’ll paraphrase and cite the material.  In turn, all citations/direct quotations are from the writing on 8/28/04:

The legend begins with a cry from a figure I introduce as “the one ‘paralysed’ by the boundary of morality.”  He cries, “We are limited!”  Don Quixote (who entered the scene of this daily writing experiment the day before) addresses the despairing figure, attempting to rouse him: “the knight-errant shall release you from your self-imposed isolation and misery. Join me on my quest upon the land of imagination…”   Despairing but still within his right mind, the lonely figure responds, “But sir, you are made, and do not see the ‘real’ as ‘real’, and mistake what ‘is’ for what ‘is not’.  With all do respect, Sir, it is you who need to be released from your self-imposed folly.  You speak of isolation, but who is it that has been abandoned to his own devices?...”  Don Quixote, remaining self-composed but also put off by the semantic joust, responds, “I know not of the distinctions you make between what ‘is’ and ‘is not,’ but I do recognize this wasteland in which you have become lost.  The devastation wrought here where you dwell, and which has you in its grips, was the same force of conformity and fear of the unknown that, yes, lead my beloved ones to throw so many of my ‘friends’ onto the pyre, to be lost themselves forever, swept away as so much ember and dust. Alas, some of them probably deserved a better fate, but I cannot say so for all.  But I can see my time here with you is wasted, and I dwell no further with you in this wasteland.  With that, my newest friend, I take leave of you, and with all do haste.  If you so desire, stay here and abide with those who have forgotten the way, and dwell here in the forgetfulness of mortal despair.  You believe you abide in the safety of a secure habitat, for, indeed, it is very ‘stable’ and ‘secure’ here, with little to challenge you,” Don Quixote replied, with a hint of sarcasm.

Don Quixote’s response is decisive, and shifts the conversation, or debate, because for him it has become a contest of will and perception,  back to the place where they are located: the wasteland.  I borrowed ‘wasteland’  from Nietzsche, but I encountered it in Heidegger, in What is Called Thinking? (one of the five most important sources for the project…and beyond).  To have Don Quixote name the ‘place’ as a wasteland is ironic in the manner of Cervantes, but only when we  read the entire quotation “The wasteland grows. Woe to him who hides the wastelands within.”  The second half is where the contest between these two epic figures is happening:  Who is it that is ‘growing’ (cultivating) the wastelands?   And where are these wastelands?  What are they?   One can not accuse Don Quixote of hiding within himself.  His mania is a full blown projection, an outward raging subjectivity. What of this other, lonely figure, soon to be named Zarathustra? He is alone, and cries out in despair about human limitations.   It is this figure who is guilty of cultivating the wasteland, and so Don Quixote responds: “You do not recognize it, but you are lost in the desert of discontent, in the land uncultivated by the freedom of imagination and improvisation.  You have become blinded by your fate as a mortal, which you see as a tragic torment, and cruel hoax.  But who are ‘you’ upon whom this hoax has been pulled?  And who are the merry pranksters who are playing this game?  And knowing not who they are, why do you remain under their spell?  Stand up and turn around, and look at the barren land you have left uncultivated!  While you sit here the wasteland grows!  I leave you now, for I am called to seek adventure, but beseech you to make haste, and seek to regain the paths that lead to moist and cool air, and the company of others who will challenge, test, and encourage you. Wander and seek the highest peak from which you will gain the perspective that will enable you to see far into the past-present, and deep into the profound ‘not yet,’ the possibility  sheltered by this future.  By ye seized by the sublimity of that vista…Seek the cave high in the mountains, where you will be exalted and inspired by the majesty of Nature…and find yourself mystified and then grounded…” 

As with yesterday’s writing, the writing from this day ten years go moves almost erratically from poetics and metaphoric to realism and naturalism.   ‘Wasteland’ is the sign under which this happens.  In one moment it is the psychic space of the lonely metaphysician who is always imagining a ‘beyond’ or ‘within’.  In the next moment it is a physical space (perhaps urban?), a denaturalized place, evidence of the anthropocene, which always points beyond itself, and in this way remains a sign. 

As with the important last line from 8/27/04, the last line from 8/28/04 is significant, as it discloses the name of the lonely figure: “Speechless and confounded, Zarathustra hears the tidings…the teachings from the one who has learned the only lesson the sage has to offer, to let learning be learned and thereby to stand up and improvise.”   Those familiar with the organization of Nietzsche’s book will recognize the play I am making when I write that Zarathustra was left ‘speechless’ by Don Quixote, who has clearly one the contest.