The albatross


 * "Am I not getting closer and closer to saying that in the end logic cannot be described? You must look at the practice of language, then you will see it." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

We are at the end of the month. Something exists in draft form - maybe with some edits, say by the end of next month, it will really be a draft of a book. There's also, quite likely, a philosophy paper in there as well. But we shall see.

When I think about the topics going every which way -- text that might be suitable for "Private, unfiltered, spontaneous, daily" writings -- if it is fit for being written down at all -- I wonder. What makes a quality piece of writing? Maybe it is more a matter of good writing (a verb):


 * "Lying to oneself about oneself, deceiving yourself about the pretense in your own state of will, must have a harmful effect on one's style; for the result will be that you cannot tell what is genuine in the style from what is false." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

If we look at the "practice of language" -- whether by Wittgenstein or by Eihei Dogen or anyone else who can legitimately be said to have a "practice of language" -- it seems we must find something both lighthearted and exacting. Or if we look at things a different way:


 * Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them. - Salvadore Dalí

Paragogy might be a study of psychic noise. Field theories more than electrical engineering. It may be the study and practice of "anarchy", if that means no longer being ruled by a tyrant, even if that tyrant is oneself. An anarchy with Socrates for inspiration (cf. "The Real Apology of Socrates"): Socrates whose distinguishing characteristics are (a) knowing something about love; (b) having a daimon who tells him NOT to do certain things; and, (c) having an argumentative young wife, Xanthippe. Foucault writes: "because in teaching people too occupy themselves with themselves, he teaches them to occupy themselves with the city."


 * Anarchy for the UK, it's coming sometime, maybe. I give a wrong time, stop a traffic line. Your future dream is a sharpie's scheme. 'Cause I wanna be Anarchy, in the city. How many ways to get what you want? I use the best. I use the rest. I use the N.M.E. I use Anarchy. -- the Sex Pistols

Paragogy might also be a study of psychic calm, quiet, and peace. There are certain tools that are considered ideal: three robes, an alms bowl, a cloth belt, a needle and thread, a razor for shaving the head, and a water filter. But in practice we use other tools as well (see References).

Or again it may be the study of signal, the difference between sound and quiet. Or in fact the study of mind -- not just a single mind, but the phenomenology of thinking in collectives. The presence of large quantities of text means that we can bring to bear digital tools for analysis and processing.

Or again, the study of electronic revolutions, in which we (mis)appropriate tools up to and including the Panopticon. Or again the study of revolutions whether or not they are electronic.

Or, paragogy may be useful for fitting in, without being a revolutionary at all - learning about what makes other people tick and in this way learning what makes oneself tick. Attention to breath is interesting, for example, because the lungs and heart and governed by the same complex of nerves that govern the face, so that paragogy may be a further exploration of "faciality" (Year Zero). With all of these possibilities on the table, paragogy may still be (merely) "the poetics of an imaginary science".


 * Flatulence is at the origin of the breath. The idea is to turn it back on itself, it is in this fashion that reality is demolished. [...] Such is the unique imaginary solution to the absence of problems. -- Jean Baudrillard

Or conversely:


 * «Thought is a consequence of the provocation of an encounter. Thought is what confronts us from the outside, unexpectedly: "Something in the world forces us to think" (Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition", page 139). What confronts us necessarily from outside the concepts we already have, from outside the subjectivities we already are, from outside the material realities we already know is the problem. The problem provokes thought [...] Thought-events [...] are singularities that mix with and have effects on other materialities, with other political [and] cultural [...] events.» Elizabeth Grosz, "Space, Time, and Perversion", 1995, pp. 128-9, Epigraph to Nicole Dawson's Master's thesis, "(Re)Thinking bodies: Deleuze and Guattari's becoming-woman"

Or at any rate:


 * Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées // Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer; // Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées, // Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher. -- Charles Baudelaire