Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

Adam Eget, Super Dave (Bob Einstein), and Norm Macdonald 

in the first episode of Norm Macdonald Live 

 (26 March, 2013): click here.   

 

 

I. 

 

Adam, who wishes to start a blog, writes to ask where I get my ideas for posts from. 

 

To be fair, although this is not an original question, it isn't as dumb as some people think and deserves an answer, rather than a snort of derision or a look of disdain. In fact, to enquire after the origin of ideas and the creative process is to ask something philosophically important.

 

And so, Adam, let me try to say something that might help ...

 

 

II. 

 

An idea - from the Greek term ἰδέα, meaning a visible pattern - is now more commonly defined as an abstract concept or (after Descartes) as a mental representation of an object. Many philosophers, being forever caught up in the realm of ideas, have considered them ontologically to be the fundamental category of being. Further, they consider the capacity to form, comprehend, and exchange ideas as an essential (and defining) feature of mankind [1].

 

Some people like to believe that ideas spontaneously generate from out of nowhere; that no real effort or serious thinking is required. Artists, for example, will often speak of inspiration. But whilst I don't wish to deny eureka moments or the divine influence of a muse, I think we all know that inspiration is usually born of hard work. 

 

Similarly, I'm sceptical of the idea of innate ideas believed to be universal, i.e., something which all people are born knowing (intuitively), rather than something they have learned through experience - what D. H. Lawrence, for example, terms blood knowledge. If you want to have ideas - particularly new ideas - then you need not only work hard, but get out into the world and encounter things. 

 

Having said that, I'm not advocating any and all forms of experience and by hard work, I do not mean mere toil. As Heidegger says, sometimes the most vital form of activity is waiting patiently and preparing for the future and allowing one's work to become an inner illumination of the heart [2]. 

 

Ultimately, good ideas cannot be compelled and, ironically, may often result from those times when work seems to go slowly or badly; i.e., those moments of failure.                      

 

 

Notes

[1] Plato, for example, argued that there is a mind-independent realm of unchanging and universal ideas or forms. Real knowledge is knowledge of these ideas; knowledge of the material world (which is subject to change) doesn't count for much in his view. 

 

[2] I take this phrase (and idea) from section 150 of Heidegger's 'Ponderings IV', in Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938, trans. Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 2016), p. 186. 

Heidegger Vs Tyson Fury

Tyson Fury Gypsy King 

by Ryan James Wilson 

ryanthedesigner.uk

 

 

As someone who has always admired those brave enough to enter the ring and dedicate themselves to the always brutal, often bloody - sometimes deadly -  art of boxing, I would like to send my congratulations to the self-styled Gypsy King, Tyson Fury, for defeating the American Deontay Wilder and thereby retaining his WBC heavyweight title. 

Boxing - a sport that transcends sport, being as it is about so much more than competitive physical activity - has inspired many great writers and film-makers and even though Fury undoubtedly has his flaws and shortcomings (made much of by critics who seem not merely to take issue with some of his remarks, but object to his very existence), he's a remarkable figure. 

 

Amusingly, however, I've just come across this note by Heidegger which seems to offer a counter-view to my own: "An age in which a boxer can be acclaimed a great man and be deemed worthy of the usual tokens of honour, in which purely physical virility (brutality) counts as the mark of a hero," is an age where there is little or no place for philosophy.*

 

Of course, Wittgenstein would argue that the philosopher must be prepared to fight for a space in which to think and that the philosopher who isn't prepared to regularly engage others in intellectual combat is like a boxer afraid to enter the ring.  

 

 

* See Martin Heidegger, 'Ponderings and Intimations III', 177, in Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks (1931-1938), trans. Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 2016), p. 134.   

You Know We're Living in a Society

George Costanza: defender of society and civilisation -

'The Chinese Restaurant', Seinfeld, S02/E11, (1991): click here.

 

 

In this era of identity politics, nobody wants to talk positively about society and its benefits. 

 

Instead, people prefer to speak of whatever community they imagine themselves belonging to on the basis of gender, race, religion, or a host of other identifying factors that they determine as crucial to who they are [1]. 

 

Often this sense of self is rooted in an experience of injustice or feelings of social exclusion and oppression. Communities thus often spend a good deal of time asserting their rights and (somewhat ironically) demanding recognition by the wider (mainstream) society that they either reject or wish to radically reform. 

 

People coming together on the basis of shared experiences and values sounds reasonable and can be empowering. But when communities become self-enclosed groups with special interests and are suspicious or resentful - even hostile - to those on the outside, then things can quickly develop in way that is problematic.           

 

Even Heidegger - whom one might have supposed to be very much for traditional (quasi-mythical) forms of Gemeinschaft and against modern, inauthentic forms of Gesellschaft - warned:

 

"The much-invoked 'community' still does not guarantee 'truth'; the 'community' can very well go astray and abide in errancy even more and even more obstinately than the individual." [2] 

 

Notes

 

[1] In a very amusing scene from one of my favourite episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm - 'Trick or Treat' (S02/E03) - Larry David identifies himself as a member of the bald community: click here.   

 

[2] Martin Heidegger, 'Ponderings and Intimations III', 153, in Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938, trans. Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 2016), p. 127. 

Post 1750: The Rambler

Portrait of Samuel Johnson 

by Joshua Reynolds (1775)

 

 

I.

 

1750 is something of a lucky number for me as the sum of its digits adds up to 13; a star number of great significance within many cultures, as well as the day of the month on which I was born. 

 

As a date, 1750 is often used to indicate the end of the pre-industrial era, so I suppose one might say that the modern world as we understand it - fully enframed by technology and powered by great machines - begins here. 

 

But 1750 also saw the first edition of Samuel Johnson's The Rambler ... [1] 

 

 

II.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is one of the most distinguished men of letters in English history. A poet, playwright, essayist, critic, biographer, and editor, he began his writing career on The Gentleman's Magazine, in 1737 [2]. 

 

His famous dictionary - which took him almost nine years to complete - was published in 1755 to great acclaim, but it's the series of tuppenny essays which he published twice weekly under the title of The Rambler, that most excite my interest here (I'll explain why below).

 

Between 1750 and 1752, Johnson (anonymously) wrote over 200 Rambler articles. Often on moral and religious topics, the essays tended to be more serious than the title of the series might suggest and Johnson adopted an elevated style of neoclassical prose that was in stark contrast with the colloquial language that most popular publications of the day favoured.

 

However, whilst sometimes sounding a bit like sermons, Johnson maintained a speculative approach to his subject matter and the essays mostly avoided being too didactic in character. It was always his hope, he said - echoing Ben Jonson - to mix profit with pleasure [3]. 

 

Other subjects discussed in The Rambler included literature, society and politics and Johnson liked to supplement his own thoughts with quotes from Renaissance humanists such as Erasmus and Descartes. Taken as a whole, these essays constitute Johnson's most consistent and sustained body of work.     

 

Alas, the publication was not a great success; as its author lamented in the final essay, 'I have never been much a favourite to the publick'. Having said that, there was a small band of devoted readers and The Rambler was critically respected for the quality and power of the writing [4]. 

 

 

III. 

 

So, why does all this interest me ...

 

Well, without wishing to blow my own trumpet - or compare myself to Samuel Johnson - it seems to me that Torpedo the Ark is in the tradition of The Rambler. 

 

The 1,750 published posts - which might be seen as micro-essays - are composed on an equally wide variety of topics and constitute a sustained body of work. Further, the blog also has a small but loyal readership and manages, I hope, to entertain as well as inform. 

 

The only real difference is that I don't charge readers anything - not even tuppence - to access the work on Torpedo the Ark; something which makes me foolish in Johnson's opinion: No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money ...    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] It's an amusing title in its ambiguity: does Johnson want his readers to imagine him as one who roams in the countryside of ideas, wandering from one topic to the next; or is he self-mockingly referring to himsef as one who writes at length in a slightly confused manner, blathering on about subjects almost unparalleled in range and variety, but never telling us anything of substance ...? 

 

[2] Founded in London, in 1731, by Edward Cave, The Gentleman's Magazine was a monthly publication which ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term magazine for a periodical and included commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to Latin poetry (rather, one might say, like Torpedo the Ark, which also aims to produce numerous pieces of such variety that it becomes impossible to provide an overview).   

 

[3] See the Prologue to Ben Jonson's play Volpone (1606). 

      This ideal has continued to unfold in our own times; the BBC, for example, declare a desire "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".

[4] Further, when issues of The Rambler were collected in book form (1753), the essays became more widely read and appreciated, particularly amongst members of the newly emerging middle-class who hoped to improve their knowledge in a manner that would enable them to converse more easily with the highly educated members of the aristocracy. 

      Contemporary readers can purchase a facsimile reprint of The Rambler (Kessinger Publishing, 2010) on Amazon: click here. Alternatively, Johnson's essays from The Rambler can be read on the Samuel Johnson blog published by Matt Kirkland: click here. 

 

 

Butterfly

 

Damien Hirst: Expulsion (2018) 

Butterflies and household gloss on canvas 

(84" diameter)

 

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite short poems by D. H. Lawrence is called 'Butterfly' and exists in two versions, the first of which opens with the following lines: 

 

 

The sight of the ocean 

or of huge waterfalls

or of vast furnaces pouring forth fire

 

does not impress me as one butterfly does

when it settles by chance on my shoe. [1]

  

I have to confess, my own response to Damien Hirst's series of works known as Mandalas [2] made from the wings of thousands and thousands of dead butterflies, was something similar: even whilst astonished by the beauty of the works - and dismayed by the cruelty involved in making them - they did not impress as a single living butterfly impresses when it comes from out of nowhere and briefly settles on one's shoe, or on a flower in the sunshine.

 

When a single living butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and lifts up its large, often brightly coloured wings, fluttering into flight with 56-million years of evolution behind it, then "wonder radiates round the world again" [3]. 

 

But when Mr. Hirst imports innumerable dead butterflies from breeding farms in the tropics so that he might gleefully glue their body parts on to canvas in order to make art - and money - we go away feeling somewhat despondent, even a little demoralised. 

 

For it's as if life itself has been enframed and we witnesss a gathering of lost souls [4] exhibited for our macabre delight ...      

 

 

II.    

 

Having said this, I'm aware of the need to curb what Giovanni Aloi calls misplaced outrage when it comes to Hirst's use of butterflies. For as he rightly notes, whilst one can subscribe to the view that killing creatures for the production of art is unethical, it's important to acknowledge that what Hirst is doing is nothing new and that most artworks rely upon animal slaughter: 

      

"Watercolours are mixed with ox gall, an extract of bovine gall bladder, and tempera with egg. Sepia, the reddish-brown favourite of life drawing, is derived from the ink sac of the common squid and many other pigments rely on pulverised insects to provide us with the brilliant and subtle hues used in paintings. Canvases, meanwhile, are sized with rabbit skin glue. And ferrets, squirrels, and hogs are killed to make artists’ brushes." [5]

      

Aloi goes on to argue that Hirst is simply being honest about this and making the destructive reality of art apparent:

 

"His work reveals how the achievements of art have depended on our willingness to sacrifice the lives of animals. Or perhaps more disturbingly, Hirst shows us that aesthetic beauty can derive from so-called acts of cruelty towards animals and nature." [6]

 

Finally, Aloi points out that the farms that breed Hirst's butterflies not only help sustain local economies by providing legal and regulated work, but protect the environment by dramatically reducing habitat destruction. The poaching of rare specimiens from the wild - to be sold to international collectors on the black market - is also something that the farming of butterflies helps to prevent. 

 

So, whilst I still remain unimpressed in a Lawrentian sense with Hirst's butterfly mandalas, I would encourage readers to think twice before mounting their moral high horse.   

Damien Hirst: Expulsion (2018): detail

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'Butterfly' [I], The Poems, Vol. I, ed. by Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 590. 

      Both short versions of this poem are located in The 'Nettles' Notebook, but readers might like to know that a significantly longer third version of 'Butterfly' can be found in The Last Poems Notebook; see The Poems, Vol. I, p. 610. This can be read online by clicking here. 

 

[2] Damien Hirst's Mandalas exhibition was held at the White Cube Gallery (Mason's Yard, London), 20 Sept - 2 Nov 2019: click here for details.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Butterfly' [2], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 591.

 

[4] Those who know their ancient Greek will recall that the word for butterfly - Ψυχή [psyche] - also denotes soul. 

   

[5-6] Giovanni Aloi, 'The misplaced outrage over Damien Hirst's dead butterflies', Apollo (30 Sept 2019): click here to read online. 

Excessive Brightness Drove the Poet into Darkness

Damien Hirst: Black Sun (2004) 

Flies and resin on canvas (144" diameter)

Photograph: Prudence Cuming Associates 

© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd.

 

 

I. 

 

For D. H. Lawrence, darkness is not thought negatively as a total lack or absence of visible light. 

 

In fact, for Lawrence - as for Heidegger - the dark is the secret of the light [1]; an idea that reminds one of the esoteric teachings of Count Dionys on the concealed reality of the sun and the invisibility of fire.

 

According to the latter, the brightness of sunshine is epiphenomenal and there would be no light at all were it not for refraction, due to bits of dust and stuff, making the dark fire visible: 

 

"'And that being so, even the sun is dark [...] And the true sunbeams coming towards us flow darkly, a moving darkness of the genuine fire. The sun is dark, the sunshine flowing to us is dark. And light is only the inside-out of it all, the lining, and the yellow beams are only the turning away of the sun's directness.'" [2]

 

Thus our luminous daytime world is really just a surface effect; the underlying reality is of a powerfully throbbing darkness, as great thinkers have always understood and which is recognised within various religious mythologies [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Some of Lawrence's loveliest poetry is written, therefore, beneath the dark light of a black sun [4]. But he also acknowledges the chthonic reality of darkness and likes to write of the hellish aspect of flowers, insisting, for example, that they are a gift of Hades, not Heaven [5]. 

 

This is clear in these lines from his famous poem 'Bavarian Gentians':    

 

"Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark

darkening the day-time, torch-like, with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom" [6]     

 

In 'Gladness of Death', meanwhile, Lawrence dreams of actually becoming what some might term a fleur du mal:

 

"I have always wanted to be as the flowers are

so unhampered in their living and dying,

and in death I believe I shall be as the flowers are.

I shall blossom like a dark pansy, and be delighted

there among the dark sun-rays of death. 

I can feel myself unfolding in the dark sunshine of death

to something flowery and fulfilled, and with a strange sweet perfume." [7]

 

At other times, however, Lawrence's dark musing is less floral in character and takes on a more nihilistic aspect as he longs for complete non-existence:

 

"No, now I wish the sunshine would stop,

and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies

and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out

between two halves of darkness;

the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound

obliterating everything. 

 

I wish that whatever props up the walls of light

would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down,

and it would be thick black dark forever.

Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,

nor death, which quivers with birth,

but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable." [8]

 

Now, I know that post-Freudians - even really smart ones like Julia Kristeva [9] - will tend to read a poem like this in terms of dépression et mélancolie, but those of us who know Lawrence will understand the necessity of being made nothing and dipped into oblivion [10].   

 

Notes

 

[1] Martin Heidegger, Basic Principles of Thinking (Freiburg Lectures, 1957), in Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 88.

      In a poem entitled 'In the Dark', the narrator (whom we can assume to be Lawrence) tells a frightened female figure (whom we can assume to be Frieda) that even when she dances in sunshine, it is dark behind her - as if her shadow were the essential aspect of her being. 

      See D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 170-71. And cf. this stanza from 'Climb down, O lordly mind': "Thou art like the day / but thou art also like the night, / and thy darkness is forever invisible, / for the strongest light throws also the darkest shadow." The Poems, Vol. I, p. 411.     

 

[2] See D. H. Lawrence, The Ladybird, in The Fox, The Captain's Doll, The Ladybird, ed. Dieter Mehl, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 180. 

      Lawrence probably got this idea of the black sun from Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine (1888), though it by no means originated in theosophy; the ancient alchemists, for example, also wrote of the sol niger. Today, it's our physicists who talk of dark energy and dark matter; and neo-Nazis who fetishise the symbol of the black sun.       

 

[3] In Greek mythology, for example, Erebos was one of the primordial deities; born of Chaos, he was a personification of darkness.

 

[4] Lawrence's 'Twilight', for example, opens with the line: "Darkness comes out of the earth". See The Poems, Vol. I, p. 12.

 

[5] See 'Purple Anemones', The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 262-64.       

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Bavarian Gentians' [1], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 610. 

      See also 'Glory of Darkness' [1], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 591, in which Lawrence eulogises the darkness embodied in some Bavarian gentians which make "a magnificent dark-blue gloom" in his sunny room.  

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'Gladness of Death' [2], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 584.  

[8] These are the first two stanzas of Lawrence's '"And oh - that the man I am might cease to be -"', The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 165-66. 

      This theme of an annihilating darkness can also be found in 'Our day is over', ibid., p. 369.

[9] See Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. Leon S. Roudiez, (Columbia University Press, 1989). 

      For Kristeva, depression is a form of discourse with a language to be learned, rather than strictly a pathology to be treated. This depressive discourse often reveals itself in poetry or other creative forms of self-expression. See Garry Drake's M.A. thesis - D. H. Lawrence's Last Poems: 'A Dark Cloud of Sadness', (University of Saskatchewan, 2008) - which reads Lawrence's work in light of Kristeva's theory: click here. 

[10] I'm referring here to one of Lawrence's last poems, 'Phoenix', which can be found in The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 641-42. 

Most of the poems by Lawrence that I refer to in this post can be found online:

 

'In the Dark' - click here.

 

'Twilight' [aka 'Palimpsest of Twilight] - click here. 

 

'Purple Anemones' - click here. 

 

'Bavarian Gentians' - click here. 

 

'Glory of Darkness' - click here.

 

'And oh - that the man I am might cease to be' - click here.

 

'Our day is over' - click here. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one, click here. 

 

 

Hello Darkness My Old Friend ...

Hello darkness, my old friend - by Niranjan Morkar

dribble.com

 

 

I. 

 

The three fundamental laws of logic - (i) the law of non-contradiction; (ii) the law of the excluded middle; and (iii) the principle of identity - are all well and good, but cannot be thought valid for all forms of thinking. 

 

Why? Because - whether our logicians like to admit it or not - some forms of thinking rely upon creative madness and daimonic inspiration and so are not regulated by reason alone. 

 

Our very greatest poets, for example, playfully affirm paradox, ambiguity, and what Barthes terms the pleasure of the text; they are unafraid of appearing inconsistent or irrational and are proud to proclaim that if, like Whitman, they contradict themselves that's fine with them (for they contain multitudes) [1].        

 

II. 

 

Similarly, our great poet-philosophers, like Heidegger, argue that even the most enlightened thinking requires darkness: 

 

"This darkness is perhaps in play for all thinking at all times. Humans cannot set it aside. Rather they must learn to acknowledge the dark as something unavoidable and to keep at bay those prejudices that would destroy the lofty reign of the dark. Thus the dark remains distinct from the pitch black as the mere and utter absence of light. The dark however is the secret of the light. The dark keeps the light to itself. The latter belongs to the former. Thus the dark has its own limpidity." [2] 

 

This dark limpidity of thinking, is something that must always be protected. However, it's hard to do so when everything is now lit up with electric lights and we aspire to an ideal of excessive brightness that is brighter than a thousand suns.

 

As Heidegger says:   

 

"The light is no longer an illuminated clearing, when the light diffuses into a mere brightness [...] It remains difficult [...] to keep at bay the admixture of the brightness that does not belong and to find the brightness that is alone fitting to the dark. [...] Mortal thinking must let itself down into the dark depths of the well if it is to see the stars by day. It remains more difficult to guard the limpidity of the dark than to procure a brightness that only wants to shine as such. What only wants to shine, does not illuminate. [3]

 

In sum: whenever you start to think about thinking, you are instantly transported into darkness ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 51: click here to read on poets.org.  

 

[2] Martin Heidegger, Basic Principles of Thinking (Freiburg Lectures, 1957), in Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 88.

 

[3] Ibid., pp. 88-89. 

 

 

This post (as promised) is for Jenina Bas Pendry. 

 

For a sister post to this one, click here.

It's Not the Cough That Carries You Off ...

Capsula Mundi

 Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel

 

 

Growing up, whenever I had a cold my father liked to joke (à la George Formby Sr.): It's not the cough that carries you off - it's the coffin they carry you off in [1].

I remembered this when reading the following passage from Heidegger in relation to the German regular verb stellen (which in English means to set in place, or to position):

"The carpenter produces a table, but also a coffin. What is produced, set here, is not tantamount to the merely finished. What is set here stands in the purview of what concernfully approaches us. It is set here in a nearness. The carpenter in the village does not complete a box for a corpse. The coffin is from the outset placed in a privileged spot of the farmhouse where the dead peasant still lingers. There, a coffin is still called a 'death-tree' [Totenbaum]. The death of the deceased flourishes in it. This flourishing determines the house and the farmstead, the ones who dwell there, their kin, and the neighbourhood. 

      Everything is otherwise in the motorized burial industry of the big city. Here no death-trees are produced." [2]   

Personally, I would love to be buried like King Arthur in a coffin made from a tree trunk, preferably oak, that has been split longitudinally and hollowed out by a skilled local carpenter. 

 

Having said that, I'd be just as satisfied with any number of alternative arrangements, providing they can legitimately be described as natural (eco-friendly) forms of burial; i.e., methods of interment which use biodegradable materials and do not artificially inhibit decomposition of the corpse. 

 

Basically, as long as my body is free to rot, I'll be happy - although, at the moment, I'm particularly keen on the egg-shaped burial pods envisioned by designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, which will have trees planted directly above them, so that decomposing waste is sucked up by hungry young root systems in search of nutrients.

 

In this way, death flourishes, as Heidegger would say, and this flourishing determines (in part at least) the surrounding woodland and the life within it.     

 

 

Notes

[1] George Formby Sr. (1875-1921) - known as 'The Wigan Nightingale' - is acknowledged as one of the greatest music hall performers of the early 20th century. His comedy played upon northern stereotypes and his own poor health; he even incorporated his bronchial cough into his act and came up with the saying that my father liked to repeat whenever the opportunity to do so arose. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis aged 45.    

 

[2] Martin Heidegger, 'Positionality', from the 1949 Bremen Lecture series Insight Into That Which Is, see Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 25. 

 

 

This post is for Heide Hatry: Königin des Todes und eine Ausnahmekünstlerin.

I Shall Speak of Geist, of Flame, and of Glimpses

Glimpse of a goddess (2017) by Syd Mills (Vetyr)

See: V's art on tumblr.com 

Buy: on inprnt.com

 

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite English words of German origin is glimpse.

 

Whilst most people understand it simply to mean a brief or partial view - to catch a quick look, perhaps in passing, of something or someone - it has a more poetic and philosophical resonance for those with ears to hear ...

 

 

II. 

 

D. H. Lawrence, for example, was fascinated by the word glimpse and often used it in the verses found in The Nettles Notebook, suggesting that aspects of divinity are revealed in the faces and forms of people when they are momentarily unaware of themselves:

 

When men and women, when lads and girls are not thinking,

when they are pure, which means when they are quite clean from self-consciouness

either in anger or tenderness, or desire or sadness or wonder or mere stillness 

you may see glimpses of the gods in them. [1]

  

It's this glimmer of godhood which gives human beings their more-than-human beauty; which makes the flesh gleam with a kind of radiance or the bright flame of being:

 

O, if a flame is in you, be it so!

When your flame flickers up, and you flicker forth in sheer purity

for a moment pure from all conceit of yourself, and all after-thought

you are for that moment one of the gods [...] [2]

 

Without this flamy element, we cannot become who we are, says Lawrence.   

 

 

III.

 

German philosopher Martin Heidegger would surely appreciate what Lawrence writes here. For he too wrote of flame (as the being of spirit) [3] and he also privileged the word Blick, which I would translate as glimpse, but which is given here as glance:

 

"In the glance [im Blick] and as the glance, what is essencing enters into its own illumination. Through the element of its illumination, the glance shelters back in the glancing whatever it catches sight of; at the same time, glancing likewise guards in illumination the hidden darkness of its provenance as what is unilluminated." [4]   

 

A glimpse is thus a kind of lightning flash in which the truth of being is revealed. 

 

In other words, it provides what Heidegger describes as an insight into that which is. And that's important: for as long as we do not experience what is, then "we can never belong to what will be" [5].     

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'All sorts of gods', The Poems, Vol. 1, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 579. 

      See also the related verses 'Glimpses' [579], 'For a moment' [579-580], and 'Man is more than homo sapiens' [581-82]. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Be it so', ibid., p. 581.   

 

[3] Derrida picks up on the idea that in German Geist ist Flamme (rather than breath, as it is in Greek and Latin); see Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, (University of Chicago Press, 1989). 

      Readers of Nietzsche may also recall at this point his famous closing line to the poem 'Ecce Homo': Flamme bin ich sicherlich! The poem can be found in 'Joke Cunning, and Revenge', Nietzsche's prelude of rhymes to The Gay Science.       

 

[4] Martin Heidegger, 'The Turn', from the 1949 Bremen Lecture series Insight Into That Which Is, see Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 70.  

[5] Ibid., p. 72. 

On Autumn

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Autumn (1573)

 

"I notice that autumn is more a season of the soul than nature ..." 

 

 

Ever since childhood, autumn has been my favourite season: a time of conkers and bonfires; pumpkins and toffee apples; giant spiders and daddy longlegs ... What's not to love? I even like the first sharp frosts and shortening of the days.    

 

I've certainly never found anything painful or depressing about this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and poets who do, I would suggest, merely reveal their own melancholic dispositions [1].

 

Still, not to worry; who needs sad and sickly poets when there are philosophers capable of writing lines like these which beautifully capture the joy of this time of year:

 

"Autumn - not deterioration and dying, not the over and done - quite to the contrary, the fiery, glowing entrance into the certain silence of a new time of waking to the unfolding - the acquisition of the restraint of the established jubilation of the inexhaustibe greatness of being [Sein] at its bursting forth." [2]   

 

  

Notes

 

[1] To his credit, although there are traces of sadness and regret in Keats's famous ode that I quote from here, he primarily affirms the fact that autumn is a season of great beauty and abundance. To Autumn (1819) can be read on the Poetry Foundation website: click here.          

 

[2] Martin Heidegger, 'Intimations x Ponderings (II) and Directives', (95), in Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938, trans. Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 2016), p. 26. 

      One might argue that this short piece demonstrates that philosophy is poetic in a way that poetry never can be (in much the same manner that it's scientific in a way that no science can be). 

 

 

Bonus: to read a fascinating web feature entitled Nietzsche: The Problem of Autumn, by David Farrell Krell and Donald L. Bates, (University of Chicago Press, 1997), please click here.