This was an essay for a class on literary theory Got an A of course :)
--
I'm in one of those bizarre times where the world has just went wyrd again for me and I'm drifting in the currents of the will of the gods...and they want me to learn something here and it's one of those damn things I have to *learn* by experience. The whole world has shifted to a pattern of paradox and I'm stuck trying to realign the paradigms. My brain is scrambling to assimilate the inflow of new truths and my looking glass has shattered. It's shamanic rebirth time again, folks, and the lessons are piling up like leaves in the fall. I'm trying to rake the world back together, and the individual leaves of reality are running in the wind laughing at me. And still I sojourn on, as I must find the true and *real* definition of everything. This is neither as simple nor as complex as it may seem. Go back and read that one again. Yes, truly, the simplicity lies in the order of truth and universal subjectivity. What each individual piece of the pattern means to me, is the only real truth. The complexity lies within the way that *eveyone* else's subjective truth also is the real truth. For it it the way of mortals to indeed accept the truth of concrete reality, and yet for some, also accept the truth of abstractive reality, so that the world must indeed been seen through dual lenses. And thus, the paradox of the simple and complex is maintained....
Hello, and Welcome to my world. This happens a lot here, so the best advice I can give you is relax....someday, it will all make sense if we just let it.
Just be warned:
I understand *everything*. I may not choose to dignify any credence on any piece of this pattern that we call a society/genus/species/blot on the space time-continuum. I won't embrace anything with a subjective belief, unless it fits into my own psyche/fate/wyrd/destiny. While I may discuss it in a purely academic debate (i.e., a *true* argument), I still will not give it residency in my core philosophy. Just doesn't make the cut in my reality, and life continues. Yet, I can accept that such things that are not *real* for me, may yet still be owned by others. You are welcome to your own *truth* here. Just don't deny me the same right to my own universe. Deal?
Damn. Sorry, I got off the track there, but it's flowing. It's the first real piece of writing I've done in a while. And it makes sense even :) (Smile) Or it least it does here. I am a Pisces, your logic has no meaning here (ohh, she quotes herself... Quelle "au courant" , non?;) (Wink)
And at the same time, Freyja (1) has decided it is spring. I am drawn with a sense of wonder to new outlooks on life, new meanings and ways of looking at this reality. And a man named Jacques Derrida has swept me of my feet. It's not often I fall for someone I've never met. I have become enchanted with various literary *characters*, constructs from someone else's imagination, but rarely do I become entranced with prose, for lack of a better term. But if prose can have a gloss, and enchantment of poetry, this man found the primordial source of it. I feel his words in my soul and even more insanely, in my loins. They set my world ablaze and make my knees weak. I am awestruck with the worlds my love has opened before me. He allows my in, invites me to explore his web, and I like the fly must tread carefully lest by my blundering I become ensnared and at his power for eternity.
Oh, ma cher Jacques, je t'aime....Vous avez capturé un morceau de mon âme pendant toute l'heure. Je suis ravi par votre esprit, vos mots et sous votre charme. Je vous aimerai pour une éternité. Merci, vous êtes incroyable. Je me souhaite pourrais voir le monde la manière que vous , mais j'ai beaucoup à apprendre....(2)
Ah, we must now journey together to another place. Let us follow "l'homme de beaucoup de mondes" (man of many worlds) down the path he has found for us.
I can't pretend to have the power or ability to understand *exactly* the words of my springtime love, but I believe I have the way of his meaning. Or at least I hope I do, but here, in the world of literarai, I am like the gawky awkward girl, who peers in the door, trying to summon the courage to join the party, fearing she just hasn't got what it takes to be there. Yet, like a willow-the-wisp in the darkness, Jacques is there.
I must get closer.
I must understand.
I know the feeling he can stir in me, but yet the closer I get the stronger the fear. My hero must not see me fail, I couldn't bear it.... And yet, I feel so lacking in comprehension, yet sometimes like the emerald flash at sunset, I glimpse a brief moment of total clarity and compression, and it all *makes SENSE*! And then the veil drops again and I am cast out into the darkness to meander through the mists of obscurity once more. I pray to my gods that he that should walk among them will not have seen my slip from radiance. One hopes.
Understanding the words that are upon the surface is one way to see truth. There are many others.
As I delve into the words and meanings in the dream realm, words of encouragement are there to spur me onward in my search for the absolute.
The text is the first barrier that can be laid siege to. My sense of foreboding grows.... While Jacques may have conquered the text, I'm still intimidated. I'm not ready to face the monsters... not yet. But I must keep in mind that I need to experience, learn, devour.....and even befriend, for Jacques tells us:
"Monsters cannot be announced.
One cannot say: 'here are our monsters',
without immediately turning the monsters into pets." (3)
To know the monster in disguise, we must find its story...
cherchez (search) for what's easily seen, yes we can start there.
Explore, experience, and learn. Great. One step out of/into the Void (Depends of Perspective). Onward, consider the opposite...by denying what is obvious, we learn. What has been shrouded, we now remove the webs of misdirection from. Ah. Now we have what the text does not mean.
But if we closely compare what is and what is not, do we not see even more? It sets the rules for the relationship, if you will. And as a bonus, it appears that when we set the text and not text out side by side, it's so much more emphasized.
Is black not blacker next to white? Does light shine brighter in darkness? Is woman not more feminine next to man? Is water wetter when you thirst?
Yet think again...Is there not a thin line between love and hate? Yes, yet another perspective we can now consider. In what ways would you describe the line between love and hate? Can this not also shed illumination upon our text?
How else can we explore this.....
Ah, yes...the ways are endless....
Experience the text. Take it *anywhere* you can. Take it home.....Why not?
Take it to the limit. Explore every contour, nuance, the taste, feel, smell touch of the words, their ebb and flow, how they rub against each other. And just when we can't take anymore.... It happens.
Yes, oh yes...Incredibly, there is more. Each surge of understanding brings us closer....closer...closer......at the peak, there's a long slow moment when there is completeness, all is exposed, and with a crash, we exhaust ourselves completely.
We've done all we can. So what does it all mean?
Here we go again......and I don't think I'll ever get it as well as he does....
Never mind that.
Come on, the ride's well worth it.......Just look for Jacques.
Au revoir, cheri.
__________________________________________________
1. Freyja; Norse fertility goddess, associated with lust and war. Other associations: magic, seidhr ( a form of Nordic magical rites and workings) , cars, boars, heroes, valkyries, sensuality, and sex.
2. trans. "Oh my dearest Jacques, I love you. You have captured a piece of my soul for all time. I am entranced by your mind, your words and under your spell. I will love you for an eternity. Thank you, you are incredible. I wish I could see the world the way you do, but I have much to learn."
3. Jacques Derrida, "Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other small Seismisms", The States of Theory, ed. David Carroll, New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. 63-94
