That quote is such a winner, precisely because it doesn't make a claim to everything. I always think back to an Andre Gide quote, "Believe those who seek truth, doubt those who find it." We all know it's rarely ever ONE or THE OTHER and still we live in systems of left and right, black and white, red and blue, etc. It's almost like we don't learn from what everyone has told us since time immemorial ... thanks for reading
It's fascinating, really. I wonder what it is in our humanness that yearns for absolutism. Or is it nurture rather than nature? Maybe the simplicity of duality appeals to our evolutionary need for "gimme the quickest, easiest answer so I can conserve energy"? I think about duality a lot: https://marypoindextermclaughlin.substack.com/p/the-duality-trap
I think it comes from our fear of the unknown. Camus is one of those thinkers who that I feel pointed out something fundamental about existence ... we're terrified at the uncertainty, but at least we can accept it and make the terror absurd, because it is. And then we can start.
Nicholson Baker wrote the most plain path by way of how Americans could have arranged exit visas for Jews during the war. In essays: the Way the World Works. I say by way of I will start my revising history from there, will read another book of his, David Graeber told me pieces of my story abt how we got here. Like thusly: he boldly said once that a body doing like I do house maintenance has a strongest claim to his wages as things stand. Based on a feeling that he had. And then , zap !comix, fast forward to Substack and people are thoughtful in comments....what happened in between? 11 days ago Sam Kahn did a first thought best thought about By the decades 1900 to the 2020's, maybe the story is between the lines there...
I love the title of that Baker text, thanks for the recommendation. Did you see the recent Ken Burns documentary on the US & The Holocaust? It's incredible just how moralistic politicians can be up until they're asked to put their ethics where their mouth is.
YES to the in between. I think your'e onto something there, and it's funny you mention it, b/c the collection of stories I'm kind of always working on is called "Between the Lines" (there are a few of them in my "tall tales" section). I'm always so fascinated by what we as individuals decide to forget / choose to remember, and to extrapolate that to a society level is just mind-boggling. I remember the Far Side by Gary Larson, and I remember Hey Arnold! on Nickeolodeon, and to think that those are considered dusty references in this day and age speaks to just how much technology has affected our connection to memory. Into the soup we delve.
“…and to think that those are considered dusty references in this day and age speaks to just how much technology has affected our connection to memory.”
I have wondered just how accidental and how deliberate the destruction of both our collective and individual ability to remember is.
Somewhere deep in my psyche I still feel like (want to feel like?) it's been less about a deliberate decision to erode our memory than the inevitable result of hyper-speed life. There's a French theorist named Paul Virilio who came out of the Barthes era and I've yet to read a text I should've read a long time ago about the nature of technological speed and its effect on our collective psyche ... but I didn't read it because I still think I should be checking my inbox or Substack notifications more often. Wait a tick ...
One day I will introduce you to ARD, the anti-ism. You have the makings of a fine ARDist. Thank you for this thought-provoking essay. I was intrigued from the outset because earlier in the day I had invoked Ms. Didion's familiar quote on why she writes, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." This, it appears, is something you have in common.
Ah, to be an ARDist. 'Tis a worthy pursuit. There are writers like Didion and Baldwin and Mary Shelley and Vonnegut who are of that other world in my mind, who genuinely needed to write things down, like the great quote you mention, "to find out what I see and what it means." These are the writers that wake me up in the morning (who am I kidding? I fall asleep reading at night)--when I'm reading them, yes, but also when I remember how many days it's been since I found the ARD of it all on the page.
Sep 12·edited Sep 12Liked by Samuél Lopez-Barrantes
This is a really thoughtful piece, with of course lots of depressingly necessary historical-yet-still-contemporary political points and reminders. On a personal level it maybe also highlighted to me some of what puts me off narrative, or leads me to find most 'traditional' plot structures unsatisfying or frustrating, that being the attempt to shape the unshapeable into some form of narrative sense rather than leaving it in its amorphous and more intangible form. Not that non-narrative forms don't also try to grasp and explain or make sense, but perhaps there is something that pushes towards that experiential rather than the explanative?
Thanks friend. And I hear you re: the glory of the amorphous shapes. But I think our brains, when we're young, have a lot of trouble understanding concepts that aren't clearly defined, and then of course we grow up and realize all of our calcified ways. I am more of a fan of structures that also allow for the astructural element of existence, which is why I like jazz. The form is there to show the formless. Or something. We need whiskey for this.
I always felt like interpretive dance, purely as a form of therapy (and not to be performed to an audience) is as close to that kind of fluid interpretation of existence gets. I wish I were able to watch Isadora Duncan back in the day. She seemed to be connected to wherever it is, that higher plane.
Loved this, Samuel. Especially your nod to Beckett in the last sentence: MAYBE it's this. Thanks for an enlightening piece.
That quote is such a winner, precisely because it doesn't make a claim to everything. I always think back to an Andre Gide quote, "Believe those who seek truth, doubt those who find it." We all know it's rarely ever ONE or THE OTHER and still we live in systems of left and right, black and white, red and blue, etc. It's almost like we don't learn from what everyone has told us since time immemorial ... thanks for reading
It's fascinating, really. I wonder what it is in our humanness that yearns for absolutism. Or is it nurture rather than nature? Maybe the simplicity of duality appeals to our evolutionary need for "gimme the quickest, easiest answer so I can conserve energy"? I think about duality a lot: https://marypoindextermclaughlin.substack.com/p/the-duality-trap
I think it comes from our fear of the unknown. Camus is one of those thinkers who that I feel pointed out something fundamental about existence ... we're terrified at the uncertainty, but at least we can accept it and make the terror absurd, because it is. And then we can start.
Nicholson Baker wrote the most plain path by way of how Americans could have arranged exit visas for Jews during the war. In essays: the Way the World Works. I say by way of I will start my revising history from there, will read another book of his, David Graeber told me pieces of my story abt how we got here. Like thusly: he boldly said once that a body doing like I do house maintenance has a strongest claim to his wages as things stand. Based on a feeling that he had. And then , zap !comix, fast forward to Substack and people are thoughtful in comments....what happened in between? 11 days ago Sam Kahn did a first thought best thought about By the decades 1900 to the 2020's, maybe the story is between the lines there...
I love the title of that Baker text, thanks for the recommendation. Did you see the recent Ken Burns documentary on the US & The Holocaust? It's incredible just how moralistic politicians can be up until they're asked to put their ethics where their mouth is.
YES to the in between. I think your'e onto something there, and it's funny you mention it, b/c the collection of stories I'm kind of always working on is called "Between the Lines" (there are a few of them in my "tall tales" section). I'm always so fascinated by what we as individuals decide to forget / choose to remember, and to extrapolate that to a society level is just mind-boggling. I remember the Far Side by Gary Larson, and I remember Hey Arnold! on Nickeolodeon, and to think that those are considered dusty references in this day and age speaks to just how much technology has affected our connection to memory. Into the soup we delve.
“…and to think that those are considered dusty references in this day and age speaks to just how much technology has affected our connection to memory.”
I have wondered just how accidental and how deliberate the destruction of both our collective and individual ability to remember is.
Somewhere deep in my psyche I still feel like (want to feel like?) it's been less about a deliberate decision to erode our memory than the inevitable result of hyper-speed life. There's a French theorist named Paul Virilio who came out of the Barthes era and I've yet to read a text I should've read a long time ago about the nature of technological speed and its effect on our collective psyche ... but I didn't read it because I still think I should be checking my inbox or Substack notifications more often. Wait a tick ...
One day I will introduce you to ARD, the anti-ism. You have the makings of a fine ARDist. Thank you for this thought-provoking essay. I was intrigued from the outset because earlier in the day I had invoked Ms. Didion's familiar quote on why she writes, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." This, it appears, is something you have in common.
Ah, to be an ARDist. 'Tis a worthy pursuit. There are writers like Didion and Baldwin and Mary Shelley and Vonnegut who are of that other world in my mind, who genuinely needed to write things down, like the great quote you mention, "to find out what I see and what it means." These are the writers that wake me up in the morning (who am I kidding? I fall asleep reading at night)--when I'm reading them, yes, but also when I remember how many days it's been since I found the ARD of it all on the page.
This is a really thoughtful piece, with of course lots of depressingly necessary historical-yet-still-contemporary political points and reminders. On a personal level it maybe also highlighted to me some of what puts me off narrative, or leads me to find most 'traditional' plot structures unsatisfying or frustrating, that being the attempt to shape the unshapeable into some form of narrative sense rather than leaving it in its amorphous and more intangible form. Not that non-narrative forms don't also try to grasp and explain or make sense, but perhaps there is something that pushes towards that experiential rather than the explanative?
Thanks friend. And I hear you re: the glory of the amorphous shapes. But I think our brains, when we're young, have a lot of trouble understanding concepts that aren't clearly defined, and then of course we grow up and realize all of our calcified ways. I am more of a fan of structures that also allow for the astructural element of existence, which is why I like jazz. The form is there to show the formless. Or something. We need whiskey for this.
Yes, jazz is a good example, agreed - and maybe music or non-verbal artforms (perhaps figurative painting less so) in general. Tbc over whiskey!
I always felt like interpretive dance, purely as a form of therapy (and not to be performed to an audience) is as close to that kind of fluid interpretation of existence gets. I wish I were able to watch Isadora Duncan back in the day. She seemed to be connected to wherever it is, that higher plane.