I begin again - a description of how philosophy begins. A process of self-realization where thought goes beyond the material-phenomenal world. We emerge by identifying with the pure subjectivity of perception, reaching out to those who can say "I" in the world of ideas. It is the affirmation of existence that frees the self from the confines of the world of appearance to a world beyond. It is here that the self builds a place that only a few can enter.
Can you not see how fine the life of the mind can be, surrounded by the wonder of existence itself?
The written words describe the self's unique existence that can only be perceived by reading between the lines. A soul appears, having nothing but his own subjectivity and a Will-to-Being. We take the existential leap towards a place beyond what the senses can perceive, to an eternal present only experienced by the soul that meditates on the words of self-revelation. It is "this" moment that one can see the reflection of the self in the other who has the power of awareness to say "we exist."
How many exist -- in the sense that those who say "we exist" mean it -- beyond our ability to perceive?
ReplyDeleteAre you speaking here of a connection between two souls through the process of reading the written word?
There are some interesting, almost creepy passages in the works of writers like Whitman and Nietzsche when the author literally speaks to the reader of the future.
Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is perhaps the most famous example. Here are a few lines.
"Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
...
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence.
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d
..."
And so on
I remember first reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and having a very deep realization that the past really happened, all those centuries and eons took shape second by second, moment by moment. I found this really astonishing, that someone in the 1800s would appreciate this too, and look up from their world at the future, a future they could not imagine in its particulars. Whitman understands that his human perception and his Leaves of Grass -- the fruits of his labor as a poet -- will endure for hundreds of years. Not only does he have the experience of a connection with future generations through the body and the earth, the structures of Manhattan and Brooklyn; he also views the poem itself as the vehicle (the ferry) that will carry the connection to fruition.
Is that something like what you are getting at here? Or perhaps, unlike Whitman, you are taking this communication of souls beyond the symbolic-poetic realm of earth and bodies (the enduring presence of Manhattan and Brooklyn)?
The world you invoke is "an eternal present".
I wonder how this compares with the world implied by Whitman and Nietzsche in passages where they directly address readers of the future... Do these authors presuppose a realm of ideas or "an eternal present" where their thoughts reside, awaiting the readers of the future?
Perhaps Nietzsche, for example, looked forward to a future reader who could share his thoughts and say "We exist". In some sense I would say that Nietzsche himself may not have existed in the realm that he imagined for the future. Perhaps he had glimpses of the reader of the future for whom he wrote his works, but he viewed himself as unable to shake that readers hand, in some sense -- unable to share in this pronouncement "We exist."
Did Nietzsche think of himself as the Overman of the future? Perhaps the only readers Nietzsche could envision himself sharing the pronouncement "We exist" were people who themselves were NOT Supermen.
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