The first post

On finding joy in writing again and philosophy

Hi!

So, this will be my place to explore a freer writing practice (and practice writing in English rather than Swedish).

In part this is a shift from the time of day I write; which now takes place in the mornings, which steals a lot of time from physical exercise and my daily meditations. Which in turn is not good for my ADHD (which I see as a different intensity and form of attention, a way of being-in-the-world) or the people around me. When I was more concerned with other artistic practices, such as developing film and printing photographs, or painting and working with different collage techniques, I usually worked later in the days or in the evenings. This is in part my goal to achieve again, to be a little more nocturnal.

Regarding method I will in part take my departure from the cut-up technique of Tristan Tzara, as popularized by William S. Burroughs. I have gotten to a point where writing is giving me stress-induced eczema, so my thought is that there is some internal tension going on here, and perhaps a sort of mimicking can be one way of loosening that tension/knot.

Philosophy for that matter, can hardly be described as something else than a wearing of different masks, a sort of comedic play — the philosopher as a mimos, a mime, wearing the philosophers and artists she reads, as a mime’s mask. In that vein I would also like to tie it to the word’s roots — in mum (silence) and to mumble (to speak indistinctly, silent utterance) and murmur — like flowing water. As Ivan Illich describes Hugo de San Victor’s mumbling:

The modern reader conceives of the page as a plate that inks the mind, and of the mind as a screen onto which the page is projected and from which, at a flip, it can fade. For the monastic reader, whom Hugh addresses, reading is a much less phantasmagoric and much more carnal activity: the reader understands the lines by moving to their beat, remembers them by recapturing their rhythm, and thinks of them in terms of putting them into his mouth and chewing. No wonder that pre-university monasteries are described to us in various sources as the dwelling places of mumblers and munchers.

Illich does truly denaturalise how we think of reading and listening. Reading as a carnal activity, like eating; feeling the lines beat, its rhythm; in one’s throat, chest and stomach. There is of course a pedagogy in the The Vineyard of the text, one that I feel is waiting to be more explored in concrete. An inspirational pedagogy, ungrounded in the sound of flowing murmur.

And that is the perfectnote to stop at and make the transition to the next post’s theme: I’m breaking up with language (as sung in the fantastic song “Stardust” by Anna von Hauswolff, who also resides in Gothenburg):

until then - 
       stay ungrounded and rooted in 
transformation

       ecstacy gives grace