Welcome to the penultimate blog in this defeated but
bold attempt to deliberately lay new track. The mood of the moment is one of
being slightly more reconciled to the situation than I was a week ago.
How satisfying it would have been to have actually
achieved what I set out to achieve.
Really that sentence above which I wrote with a
wistful tone should really have a question mark at the end of it because the
truth is I’ve no idea how satisfying it would have been. As C.S. Lewis pointed
out, ‘You never know what might have been.’
---
This week I’ve been bad backing and birthdaying, the
latter somewhat handicapped by the former. At some point, actually at many
points, it was suggested to me that I should take painkillers. The fact I
didn’t shows that the pain was manageable. I even heard myself saying, ‘I don’t
really mind this pain’ which wasn’t entirely true because I was grimacing and
audibly moaning each time I moved. Half the amount of pain in my tooth would
have had me dropping pills but the back was ok. It seems to make a difference
where the pain is.
---
5.30 on Christmas eve morning. Guess what; it is
raining. A small river flows down the road once more. It has been raining all
year and the ground is saturated. Some fields have been under water for the
best part of four months. For those who came to Glastonbury Tor for the end of
the world the other day, the surrounding floods which are turning the area back
into islands must have added a sense of Armageddon to the proceedings.
Apparently there were a couple of thousand people on the hill, marking the
solstice in a traditional way but more than that, also hoping for something of significance
to have happened.
It so happened that two of my more…what is the
word?...credulous?...friends visited on that morning at the very time they
believed the paradigm shift was occurring. 11.12 came and went. Did we feel any
different? For Ken, who is 70, this shift is both real and important. For years
he has been preaching about this time when humanity will be divided and the
good right thinking folk will have a different end from the bad wrong thinking
types. Of course such a script is an anathema for me who’s own sense of justice
demands that the world is the same for everyone and that being born at a
particular time in history gives you neither more nor less chance of a good
life. The idea that we are somehow more advanced than humans before seems to me
both arrogant and unjust.
---
I have been studying the work of Peter Wilberg again.
What a man! I continue to find his intellect so superior to my own that it is
easier to quote him then explain what he is saying. He, in turn, points to
Martin Heidegger who wrote:
“Language
speaks.”
“Language is
the house of being.”
For through
these sayings Heidegger reveals how language as such is not, as it is
ordinarily understood, a mere tool by which human beings speak and denote the
‘things’ they experience or the ways they understand them. On the contrary,
language is the very matrix (Matrika) of experiencing that both speaks us as
beings and that also speaks to us through every thing and being we encounter.
It does so through the ‘pure’ and open realm of that capacity for a direct
“receiving-perceiving” of meaning that Heidegger understood as the very essence
of human being. (Wilberg).
---
I have, no doubt, mentioned before that when I first
had a child, at the age of 20, I had no belief in ‘family’ as such, especially
what was known as the ‘nuclear family’. At the time, I wasn’t in touch with my
own parents and siblings and my reading, Laing, Cooper etc, just confirmed that
the family was a tool of repression. If you had told me then that 40 years
later I’d be a proud grandfather and that my happiest moment would be to be
photographed with my progeny, well, I would have laughed at you. Quite
honestly, Im amazed by my kids who seemed to have brought real value to old
fashioned concepts such as family and community.
Tomorrow our instructions are to go to Bristol to do
the morning shift as grandparents. I want to be there as early as possible,
between 6 and 7, whereas my partner, who loves the kids despite being
unrelated, wants to go for 10 o’clock. I wonder what compromise we will reach.
It must be slightly annoying for her because I always ignore Christmas until
the 24th when I suddenly become enthusiastic and begin to unpick the plans that
she has carefully and sensibly made. Sagittarius and Taurus, spontaneity versus
dinner-time.
---
Being 60, does it make a difference? The NHS thinks so
because they’ve sent me a free bowel cancer testing kit. Of course 60 isn’t as
old as it used to be (although a lifetime smoker like me is actually 70.) One
could expect to live another 25 years. I’m not sure at all what I feel about
that prospect. I guess that there could be a few sunny days here during that
time unless we are to be entirely washed away by the rain. It does mean that
the goal I set at the beginning of all this has not been achieved, though even
as write that a little thought pops up in my mind saying, ‘hang-on, what if in
the next week you received a contract promising you £500 a week for writing,
wouldn’t that mean you had succeeded?’ So, okay, let’s wait until the fat lady
finishes her song.
The song will be called ‘As Such’ and the words can be
Peter Wilberg’s…
Being as such
is not a being.
Existence as
such is not any existing thing.
Space as such
is not a thing or things in space.
Time as such
is not an event or process in time.
Awareness as
such is not any thing we are aware of.
Experiencing
as such is not any thing experienced.
Seeing as
such is not anything seen or seeable.
Dreaming as
such is not any thing that is dreamt.
Redness as
such is not any particular hue of red.
Similarly:
Being as such
is not reducible to or derivable from a being or beings.
Existence as
such is not reducible to or derivable from any entity or entities.
Space as such
is not reducible to or derivable from any things or bodies in space.
Time as such
is not reducible to or derivable from any processes or events in time.
Awareness as
such is not reducible to or derivable from anything we are aware of.
Experiencing
as such is not reducible to or derivable from anything experienced.
Seeing as
such is not reducible to or derivable from anything that is seen.
Dreaming as
such is not reducible to or derivable from anything dreamt.
Redness as
such is not reducible to or derivable from any particular hue of red or red
object.
In other
words:
Being as such
is not a property or product of particular beings.
Existence as
such is not a property or product of any entity or entities.
Space as such
is not a property or product of any thing or things in space.
Time as such
is not a property or product of any events or processes in time.
Awareness as
such is not a property or product of any thing we are aware of.
Experiencing
as such is not a property or product of anything experienced.
Seeing as
such is not a property or product of anything seeable.
Dreaming as
such is not a property of product of anything dreamt.
Redness such
is not a property or product of any thing that is red.
Finally:
Hardness or
solidity as such is not a property or product of any 'physical' object or
'material substance' that is hard.
Reckon that will take a week to sing.
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