To open one’s heart

Tags

love, heart, oblivion, other, self

To open one’s heart is not to allow the love to flow.

To open one’s heart and start this process of two

is not to bow down to the will of a divine power.

To open one’s heart is to open one’s mind

to the eroding absurd we all find staring at us from time to time.

But it is also the hope that the unconfirmed existence of this lover,

this cartesian other,

will be the shield we need.

We all search because we need.

We all avert our eyes from our surroundings, as we search,

because our consciousness bleeds in its self recognition.

To open one’s heart is to recognise

the futility of one’s existence.

To open one’s heart is to lay down this sacrificial recognition

at the feet of your potential shield.

And then in the field of our mind’s sow and revel in the fiction of our new finds.

Please understand that to open one’s heart in the way i describe is infinitely more romantic than allowing cupid to shoot me someday. It is to face oblivion for someone you love.

Cant wait for the summer…

Tags

dusk, forest, horses, photography, summer

A few snaps I got late last summer. Something to look at while i slog at finishing this degree in the city…

Heidegger, Art and Truth.

Tags

Art, Heidegger, philosophy, truth

Heidegger describes our common perception of art prior and in relation to his conception of art’s role. Firstly it is important to outline Heidegger’s understanding of what art is. His concept of art is that of Great Art which exists only in the past. Secondly this Great Art is not representational but that of work being and a dynamic artistic process.[1] The art we experience in galleries is often taken out of its historical context of its world rendering it impotent to our modern eyes. Heidegger noted not only the historical world’s importance but also our critical evaluation with the ‘thingly’ nature that we sense in art. The very quest to discover this nature or ‘thinglyness’ leads us to “force the work into a pre-conceived framework”[2] which automatically disallows us from ever accessing it. Heidegger recognised the conventions of art in his age as false to the work of art, connoisseurs, criticism and art students alike, as however much we attempt to revive these dead things their world is lost and therefore so is there essence. “Torn out of their own native sphere”[3] these art works lack their world, their relations, and therefore lose the proof of their truth which previously existed. It is in this previously existing realm that Heidegger claims a “happening of truth”[4] occurs or a process of work being. This refers to way in which Heidegger believed a work of art would open up its own world which in turn permitted its existence. Furthermore within this environment the art would be able to cultivate a truth or in Heidegger’s words initiate the process of “truth at work”[5].

In Being and Time Heidegger moved away from the Greecian understanding of truth, Alētheia as unforgetting, towards his new added definition in The Origin of the Work of Art. [6] Truth relies on a double concealment in which a light provides illumination for a clearing, an unconcealment of truth, which in its process conceals that which surrounds the clearing. But in “refusing and dissembling” [7] the darkness which surrounds the clearing the truth must constantly be tied to untruth. If it were to separate itself from the darkness which surrounds it, or the untruths, it would not be itself and in fact hypothetically would go through a process of new concealment/unconcealment in its new limited form.[8] With this in mind I will now examine how a work of art can be part of this process. Surrounding and the base for a work of art is the earth and world. These two concepts, integral to our understanding of Heidegger’s art, further what was previously said about truth. The world represents the “openness of the broad paths of the simple and essential decisions in the destiny of any historical people.”[9]  This in simpler terms is the day to day existence, the rules and morals of this existence and so on.  The world is grounded, just as the illuminated clearing is surrounded by darkness, on the earth. So in opposition to the world and illumination is the earth which “is the spontaneous forthcoming of that which is continually self-secluding…and concealing.”[10] The earth represents that which all things emerge, the darkness surrounding the clearing, and works in an almost oppositional symbiosis with the world.  “The opposition of world and earth is striving. But… the opponents raise each other into self-assertion of their natures”[11] allowing for a common ground to be found.  Der Riss or the rift is the common ground found between these two mysterious elements of truth’s being. The rift, although a term which appears many times in Heidegger’s work, is not to be seen as a unifying principle which acts as framework to the world and earth but rather a binding difference and boundary between the two.[12]

Art work, when discussed with earth and world in mind, is in its basic form the manmade translation of the earth/world process. Heidegger describes a Greek temple within which is the statue of a Greek God. The temple conceals the statue within but it is this concealment of the God statue which allows the God to exist and gives the concealing temple is power.[13]  The temple emerges from the earth creating a world but in this process is set back on the earth.  The earth and all its mystery lends to the world its power and also binds it to itself.[14]On observing the temple and experiencing the temple-work it “first gives to things their look and to men their outlook on themselves”[15]. A process of reflecting and creating a world which can be in people and art. The usurping of old Gods does not occur physically in this setting forth of a temple but in fact is represented by the linguistic work of the art which has been inferred on to the people. The rights and wrongs of religion surface in the rights and wrongs of language determining even what is “master and what slave.”[16] So in seeing the emerging world from the earth a set of beliefs or equipment are provided to world dwelling beings. From here the art/world/work-being demands its dedication which can be achieved due to these new tools. Just as it set up the world, the world must set up its work and so allowing it to be kept “abidingly in force.”[17] Here the values of the first role of the temple are enforced by the second role of the temple leading to authentication of these values and rendering them universal.

With the creation of universal values in this Greek example explained, which Heidegger hailed as the closest example to the great effects of Great Art, Heidegger then moves onto the role of art from our perspective. The truths which we hold and the illumination of these truths have created a world which we find ourselves part of. This world, as previously described, is not the only existence but rather an island or enclosure in a sea of possibilities. Over thousands of years this island and enclosure has changed shape with the subtle erosion of our surrounding sea and it is this that Heidegger claimed is our imperfect world. The word sea in this analogy draws many connotations and rightfully brings Nietzsche into the forefront of Heidegger’s work. It is in art and truth that Heidegger and Nietzsche differ or in which Heidegger builds upon.  Just as Nietzsche claims that some truths can be harmful to life, Heidegger claimed that art and truth held an extreme link which was important for the furthering of man but differed in the definition of what art and truth were. Art, which in Heidegger’s Nietzsche is discussed again as transfiguration, can “create possibilities for the self-surpassing of life”[18] and that self-surpassing was fundamental to will and will to power. But this implies an empowering art which can be utilized and controlled for the betterment of man. This is false when read in conjunction with Heidegger’s opinions of poetics and estrangement which states that it “is not we who are disconnected from beings…[rather] it takes the world out of our hands and allows it to be its own.”[19]  The influence of Nietzsche on Heidegger is that of working with, against and around and can probably be best inferred by the final lines of The Origin of the Work of Art; “What is truth, that it can happen as, or even must happen as, art? How is it that art exists at all?”[20]

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[1] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings (London: Routledge, 1978), 167.

[2] Ibid, 167.

[3] Ibid, 167.

[4] Ibid, 168.

[5] Ibid, 168.

[6] Gerald L. Bruns, Heidegger’s Estrangments (London: Yale University Press, 1989), 30.

[7] Gerald L. Bruns, Heidegger’s Estrangments, 33.

[8] Ibid, 33.

[9] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings, 172

[10] Ibid, 172

[11] Ibid, 172

[12] Gerald L. Bruns, Heidegger’s Estrangments, 31.

[13] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings, 168.

[14] Ibid, 169.

[15] Ibid, 169.

[16] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings,  170.

[17] Ibid, 170.

[18]Mark Blitz, “Heidegger’s Nietzsche,” in Political Science Reviewer (Washington DC, Hudson Institute, 2006), accessed December 19, 2011. http://www.mmisi.org/pr/22_01/blitz.pdf, 62.

[19] Gerald L. Bruns, Heidegger’s Estrangments, 46.

[20] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings, 178.

The Humanities: A quick note on the black sheep of the academic family.

Tags

academia, career, courses, english literature, the humanities

From the perspective of youth the various areas of academia represent not only knowledge but also prospects. The education we can gain, if we so choose, allows us not only to broaden our minds but also the horizon which contains our future. It seems a business degree holds a mysterious power over the minds of employers and for this reason also draws prospective students into its comfortable embrace promising a clear ladder to wealth and well being. But, after reading philosophy, poetry and the modern novel how does the future weigh up against the vast sea of the entity we call the past.

To label the humanities as being only of the past would be wrong. It is of the past and stares at us through books and letters from the past but is also subtly engrained in our very present which in turn, like our education shaping our possible career path, is simultaneously shaping our future. The true value of humanities today is nothing when left to fend for itself in the consumerist and technological landscape that is modernity.  The humanities provide a wide scope on the world illuminating not the present status quo or the empirical ‘fact’ but the over arcing questions which debunk steadfast truths. But a definition on the importance of the humanities is only complete when placed in its respective era, this era.

The ironic thing about the study of humanities is the world which surrounds it. The ‘developed’ world we live in today strives to exist outside the elements which shaped it even though mans interrelationship with art and philosophy (or religion as some eras defined it) has provided the grounding and direction for progress in all facets of human life. The political and economic structure we take as common place today were derived from centuries of developed thought and without their ties to their origins and creators unsurprisingly become warped. It is not to take these schools of thought and place them back in their context but rather to recognise the subtle fabric of our society which leads back in time and ultimately is already shaping (has shaped?) our future.

So, for me the importance of the humanities is the relationship it reveals with the past, present and future. Allowing not only for the maintenance of our own era but progressing and bettering our knowledge for the next. 

A shred of shrapnel takes flight from man’s mind.

Tags

art and man, mans mind, villanelle

A shred of shrapnel takes flight from man’s mind.

Like the son of a father it picks tone,

Stepping into light reflecting its find.

 

Living its lifeless rhetorical grind,

reflecting its world, choosing skills to hone,

a shred of shrapnel takes flight from man’s mind.

 

And the maker sheds tears when left behind

his art, which has gained its own holy zone,

stepping into light reflecting its find.

 

Its voice! It has its own star scream to blind.

It needs not the mortal mechanic moan,

a shred of shrapnel takes flight from man’s mind.

 

It speaks beyond us, signified and signed.

Its language becoming us as it’s grown,

stepping into light reflecting its find.

 

And is man now subject to that which shined,

first within us and we thought was our own.

A shred of shrapnel takes flight from man’s mind

stepping into light reflecting its find.

A Hegel goes;

Tags

dialectic, Hegel, modernity, morality, philosophy, triad

“The bud disappears in the bursting forth of the blossom” – Hegel, from Prelude to  Phenomenology of Spirit

 Just as the bud would not recognise the new form of the blossom so too do the remnants of a fading morality eye modernity with suspicion.

Perpetual The River Will Be

Tags

apathy, atoms, london, natural origin, nature, origin, Thames

The tide, the flow often washes me along.

The ride, the song often empties my heart.

Its as if I feel nothing.

Its as if I can exist feeling nothing.

As I sit and the murky thames flows by

and the spectres record and stroll

and I simply wish i could cry

and the subjective lives ignorantly fly

like the air-rats who stumble for scraps

unknowing of our tie

to their suffering.

All this.

All this intensity is nothing to me now.

But luckily these words frame and make them and me something.

These words exist so I can grasp onto the underlying reality that my simple atoms

fail to feel in the present.

These atoms belong to the origin

as do the atoms of the flow.

The atoms, emotionless as they are, mirror our beginning,

our present and the ever expanding mystery.

History never happened.

I cleanse myself of it.

The origin happened.

I pledge myself to it.

And the flow I will return to nature, divert

it from the image of its own absurdity and loop it back to its origin.

Perpetual Thames i will create you.

90′s Kids: A Definition

Tags

1990, 90's, capitalism, generation, pokemon, youth

“The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature.” – Blake

When i open that packet, the racket

that clangs through my clinging mind is;

‘WILL IT BE A GOOD SHINY?’

The promise and honesty in said oath is that shininess there will be.

We constantly see and saw that plastic

glitter, the little critter we pin all our childish

hope.

And stoked the fire.

And stroked my hair.

And the evil witch/warlock/smoking towers and newspaper reality croaked its verse

and pales into insignificance at the stare of my newly purchased glare.

Oh laminated commodity!

Oh vessel of our youth!

How we used you gently!

How in return you abused us!

How in revealing your reality you proved to be a false idol, a savior

who after your death (your corporate failure), sarificied by your demographic,

you did save a part of us.

You saved part we gaves to you, the fares,

you saved the shares. And we were left behind

to be defined

by a fucking Pokemon card.

 

Hourglass Framed

Tags

death, destiny, life, predetermined, purpose, spacial, temporal, time

Sands drip in living

and relative falls

as a grain entombed

it stalls in its giving

each a drop froze stale

yer hurtling fate

pulls through maze or not

which creates gifts so pale

winter thaws again

but the glass with sands

walks above us now

in lands where thought is slain

I wish to shatter.

To divert my course

to run above all

through closed doors all matter

to be, to see, to feel and find

to spread my life’s arc

like those atoms sigh

from single point

and die next to my mark

my hidden self’s mark which could help take

all fear

from my

last

breath.

Duty

Tags

beauty, desire, duty, love, madness

That often vacant stare sometimes blurts after a drink or two

into flame and tempered care

 

Or retracts a fraction from vacancy to sadness, ancient and

unmoving action.

 

Flame and a seabed soul mirroring our lives is where i crave you,

beauty in the whole.

 

And if this is beauty and it is madness then i swear to you

you are my duty.