I've had a storm of creative energy lately. Several hand made books, painting, photography, and a bit of writing. I've cut back my hours and it suits me. This age, this time of life, lends itself to caring much less about what doesn't matter. I feel completely different than a few years ago and I love that. I care about my job performance just enough to fly under the radar. (I do my best for my patients, but nothing extra to benefit the company.) Anyway, that's all repeat blah blah.
Did you see the super moon this week?
How are you? What's going on in your life?
Comments
I'm happy that you've found some inner energy. And I'm happy that you're pushing back against the "Invisible Discourse" (Capitalism) that frames, and often distorts, our notions of what is "possible" in our world today (capitalist-realism). To much adherence to the tenets of capitalist realism leads to both Depression AND Burnout.
...and there was a Supermoon? I hadn't stopped to notice. I know Texas has been in a heat wave, but we got our first taste of Autumn weather here in the Mid-Atlantic. Had the windows open and airing out the house for the past two days.
As for MY life, I've been making a pest of myself. I think that Zabelle's probably ready to kill me over at Geeez... I can't restrain my pedantry, and I can tell, it's getting to her. :(
It's one of those things that when something has puzzled you for years, and you finally discover the answer, and you can't explain it very well, but you can't stop chewing on it like a cow... and regurgitating it over-and-over... then chewing some more... I just can't quite spit it out, yet. It's driving me nuts. Since my first readings of Plato in "The Laws" that speaks to the Dionysian chorus. The step for an Apollonian-Oedipally ordered Universe to a Dionysian Schizoid-Anti-Oedipal one. No wonder Nietzsche went crazy! To think in terms of Deleuzian "parts" forming "assemblages" rather than wholes and absolutes. I begin to see things completely differently.
Well, that's kinda what's going on... I'm in a philosophical limbo-transitional state. From a philosophy playing hand-maiden to theology, to a philosophy that can de-construct and reassemble sociology, the invisible world that mediates the rest of our social relations.
About your philosophical transition state... Is it painful for you? I understand that you think it's painful for z, lol, but what about you? When I went through a big philosophical/religious transition it was immensely painful. Nearly like my brain was split in half and I couldn't have a moment's peace. I suspect yours might not be quite that extreme . My youngest daughter is taking her first college philosophy course and I've loved our discussions recently. Falling in love with philosophy was a bright spot in otherwise dismal few years. Sometimes I wish I had kept up the pace that I had back then. It's amazing to me how reading about complicated concepts like the ones you mentioned really do translate to communicating your thoughts more effectively. I hear what you mean about not being able to communicate exactly what you're thinking or going through at the moment, but I still think you communicate your thoughts much better than most people. I'm glad to hear that you're having a growth spurt.
I'm still struggling, but it's not really a "painful" process, more "manic-depressive". I guess I'm in a euphoric "manic" phase at the present, making new connections that I had missed/ over-looked/ or never really understood properly. YouTube really helps, especially as with "minor works" and "articles/ essays" that were never parts of major books, but which formed the basis for many philosophical theories.
You mentioned Nietzsche's "madness" and attribution to syphilis, but I recently came upon a video that better explained Nietzsche's project, and I'm not so sure that his writings reflect any of that. In fact, he himself realized that he would be thought a "mad philosopher" and likened to Diogenes the Cynic, because his project to "revalue all values" demanded it. If you want to understand, I just transcribed a major portion of the explanatory video, and thereby came to a much better understanding, here, which filled in a number of the missing pieces of the puzzle on the thread I was following vis Foucault pursuing a thread on "becoming animal"... from a thread of Deleuze... Becoming Woman.
Anyways, I'm having fun... manic fun. I'm trying to learn how to become a freer "Spirit" rather than the mere reactionary non-conformist I've always been. I'm trying to "embrace my otherness", instead of always repressing and denying it.
An excerpt: Perhaps pure celebration or Jubilation, a celebration so complete that even the object of that celebration, which in language is always the self, is burnt away in the excitement. This is the aspect of Nietzcshe that interrupts the vulgarization of him as the self-help individual. It's a disruption of the easy presentation of him given to us by the brand of Nietzcshe. This is the entire human being, the entire Nietzcshe whose work cannot be reduced to a self-help drug. Because at these moments, Zarathustra proclaims essentially that improving anything is impossible. Improving on mankind is impossible. Improving on the world, is in fact impossible. It's not something broken that has to be perfected.
And I would argue that any serious reading of Nietzsche has to take that aspect of him into account. And so, as we have said many times in the past, only the total Nietzsche is the total Nietzsche.
I want to try and grow the "brand" into something more "real", an understanding that the World isn't broken, it's exactly what its' supposed to be. Very Panglossian/ 'Candide/Voltaire'. It's only possible because when I retired, I passed from an mode of "acquisition" to one of "expenditure", where capitalist-realism loses its' grip on life.