| April
4th 2009

Heidegger's "Being and Time" gave a
meaning to
"Being" that makes it difficult to get away
from the question - "What is authentic?" His description of
authentic was something like a carpenter making furniture within a context
of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Or, presumably, something like a Banker engrossed
in banking. His understanding of "Being" saw something like you or I as either square
things or round things inevitably settling together
in a jar.
I understand there will be irritation from scholars
of Heidegger. I do know that these few sentences of mine are a massive
simplification of the existentialist position. But I cannot agree
that I am mistaken, or insufficiently subtle in my understanding of great
and heroic minds.
And here I dare say, my understanding of Turner,
Tosh and Jagger might also result in a condolence or a dismissal from the
erudite.

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This settling together in a jar, however, has so many parallels. Almost as
though the act of thinking itself can only ever produce variations on a
theme. As though the work of language is an Ancient Egyptian art form, out of
which we can never escape. Language is perhaps the "City in
Us", that lubricant which enables the social. If so, better to
think of language as a pheromone, and a great mind as facilitator of
sentences.
We like to believe that with us it is not just about meeting occasionally
so that gametes might be introduced to each other. We need to know
what it means, so that we can share, and by so doing appear
competent. So here, I
would like to insist that most of what I wish to share is a nonsense graded by a
scale that exists somewhere beyond language. Closer to that thing
that we might actually be. A thing which is more like a slope in a
random place, than it is like a President of the United States.
Fortunately, "harmlessness" rather than "being" permits
me to do this, because, good or
bad, the more precise language is the more controlling
it becomes.

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