fragilekeys

Freedom from the subject of representations, freedom from the egoity of Being and its truth-discourse: clearly I do not have it within me to bring about such freedom. I am surrendered to chance… irrevocably given over to another, to a response that is not only not guaranteed, but cannot ever be verified in any way. Has anyone been forced to such limits of stupidity in their refutation of themselves, of any given meaning in pursuit of the asignifying excess of infinity?

These words will not explain what this means because the meaning of the pursuit itself escapes me– escapes meaning as such, escapes any kind of articulation because articulated a priori; because pursuit means transport, outside myself, surrendered once again to chance. How much I wish there were some guiding criterion for all this; instead, exposed to the unlimited, the inappropriable event, as to the most commonplace. This experience that outdoes me every day: the invasion into this day of my last. But to access that– could it be freedom after all?
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MANIFESTATION(S):
Observations on “Occupy”

“…the greatness of Thought is in the simplicity of the decision that turns itself toward naked manifestation.” –Jean-Luc Nancy

My desire here is not to take a political stance on the OWS movement, but only to offer my view of what’s at stake. I will discuss the possibility that, as a genuine manifestation of the “people” in our post-ideological era, OWS does not “represent” or mean anything at all. As an event, it cuts through the given coordinates of our situation; but because it cuts through our coordinates, it does not lead to the production of a new ideology or a new community. It manifests a truth of being freed of the imperative of “demands,” usefulness, and effectiveness, shifting the priority of truth to the real presence of distinct bodies who share a common space. And so it does not call for their “concentration,” signification, or identification of any sort; and it is precisely to this resistance to signification, grounded in the distinction of bodies in a shared space, that we ought to remain faithful after OWS. My hope is to elaborate what this change in community might mean for us, and to suggest in passing the possibility of a world no longer paranoid by identity and knowledge, but freed to the sharing of being, freed to an experience of the world as gift. For the reason behind OWS, and for speaking here, I contend, is to share being, to share speech, and to share the gift of the world; to cross every boundary, every bounded identity, and not to send a message; to turn our thought toward the naked manifestation(s) of the world. Continue reading →

We are alike because each one of us is exposed to the outside that we are for ourselves. –Jean-Luc Nancy

And so my flight into otherness is headlong either way. This– “my problematic”– was my liberation. My answer? Going out to meet you was always worth it, especially when it made me uneasy; in fact, it gave the very criterion of “worth,” gave us over to what was most invaluable: that being feel itself other, feel itself through the other, in another– at the intensity of a death brought closer to us both. How strange, my conclusion! That the reason for our hope be that we shared death, with no hope of return, without communing, already.

To be exposed therefore is automatic, does not constitute a work. But then there is no way purposely to get closer. An unapproachable nearness is absolute.

An ominous cloud passes over the disorder of our incompleteness. Never have I felt so on my own, so close to you. Never have I been so open. Never have I felt so touched.

Everything starts over here then, from here on out. Back to the drudgery– truth of singularity– intuited long ago when this serial ordeal first started. What’s piled up here– comatose; the tower– tumbling; the middle of it– eroding; approaching– literature. Continue reading →