fragilekeys

The profound instinct for how one would have to live in order to feel oneself ‘in Heaven’, to feel oneself ‘eternal’, while in every other condition one by no means feels oneself ‘in Heaven’: this alone is the psychological reality of ‘redemption’. — A new way of living, not a new belief…

Nietzsche once observed that the rarest things, by definition, are the most fragile, the most precarious or fortuitous. The splendid velvet color of an orchid, or of crimson in a painting, cannot be traced back to causes, ends, or mere technique. They bedazzle because their sources can’t be traced; and we can’t tell how many things had to go right for them to occur. Thus rarity also inspires a sense of luckiness: an unprecedented bestowal, a superabundant surprise (like the gift of time itself…). Of course, what’s rare can also be something terrible, like Rilke’s angel, an anomaly, an accident. Perhaps we can never tell what’s good or bad when it comes to rarities: “noble” things outstrip moral measurements. What’s rare exists as if by chance, good or bad. If it goes on, it goes on in jeopardy, and at any moment its streak can be broken. Rare things are rare because rarely pursued, because the heights to which rare things rise inspires vertigo. Rarity also implies gambling, running a risk that can’t be accounted for, not even by the being being risked. Of course, humans pursue greater risks, up the ante on rarity and fragility, become somewhat conscious of it happening and so enter ever deeper into the mystery of their worlds. And the more we risk, the more fragile, the more world, the rarer. Perhaps that even defines us at our best, but nevertheless, all we can say about rare things (like us) is that they happen/ed, that we came to pass and keep passing. Beyond this, we are often struck dead mute. Even the rare person, or the rare achiever, is forced to acknowledge: “I have no idea how this happened, how everything fell into place; I am just thankful…”

Perhaps we could read Nietzsche’s attraction to Jesus and his rare instincts in this manner. Nietzsche wants to separate Jesus’ instinct or force from his “person,” and especially from his religious persona as it is framed in the churches. He knew that there could only be a Christian practice: an existing instinct, drive, or “light,” and not a belief-system or form of worship. (Nietzsche reckoned the “religion” surrounding the event of Jesus’ death a hangover of the Jewish priesthood: Paul’s fault.) To separate out Jesus’ “force” for Nietzsche meant isolating the “redeemer type.” But that meant weighing Jesus’ experience as such. He has to be understood as offering a form of life, a call to a different way of being, open to the uppermost limits of the possible. Of course, the question of “force” in Nietzsche’s thought is not limited to his consideration of Jesus; but it would seem that Jesus fits the mold of all his main motifs: amor fati, “powerless” will to power, concern with a community of free spirits (“we others”), dissolution or emptying as creation, rejection of moral authorities, eternal recurrence, the desire to take a great gamble with one’s life, to challenge us and change us forever, to live in service to the truth and to undergo everything for it, in a word: to pursue the rarest rarity… Continue reading →

So many ways to read the poem Nobody recites. Always more than one, at least.

This either-or– born to endless night, born to sweet delight– has surely caused its share of nightmares and pious commitments. One needn’t dig far for the predestination reading: some are damned, some are saved. Some will live forever, some are just walking dead. These two natal settings (valley of tears vs. blessed fruit), in this reading, appear to have nothing to do with one another; and it’s clear which one we ought to prefer and conform to in our lives (if we’ve not already panicked ourselves into martyrdom). We might also recall Aquinas’ comment that after the Last Judgment the sight of the cursed by the blessed will only increase their heavenly delight– quite the incentive to act up! This passion to be on the right side of the birth canal (God’s judgment, supposedly) motivates a great deal in our contemporary Christian culture: anti-body morality, self-depreciating, largely obedient, other-abhorrent, rooted in a constantly reinforced existential guilt. It would seem that to live in fear of the Lake of Fire is only a short step away from believing in anything. Of course, perfect love drives out all fear– and so, probably, all beliefs. Continue reading →

Once again, nothing satisfies. Highlights of refined intellectual insight, tight passages of poetry, breathy rigors of the negative dialectic– all this bores me. More boring are my own words– my own insight, poetry, negativity– including my denunciation of everything that would give the self a false sense of assurance against its death.

That ultimate question– “Why go on?”– no longer has any meaning for me. There was never any going on, or anything to go on. Nothing was ever going on, or going to. There is no language in these words, and everything I’ve done is stamped with the most ruthless absurdity. All I’m doing is hanging on, waiting on death– and “enjoying” the nameless life I lead by waiting methodically, patiently, openly. I feel as if I’ve learned all there is to know; what comes next is only the useless work of communicating it, writing books. But there’s no one at all to do this work; I don’t ever contradict what I’ve learned. My ax strikes at the same start every time, and nothing ever gets broken. And so there’s no reason to ask, “What good is it?” since it isn’t anything– since everything is already perfect. Continue reading →