While I will say that there's something poetic about an essay about a writer's failure as a thinker becoming itself a profound cause for introspection, I find myself asking questions about the reliability of "truth." Is "a truth" "a piece of thought?" If so, are we all thinkers? How well thought out does this truth have to be for it to be a valid "thought?" Wouldn't it be a problem if billions of people, because of their individual "truths," have thoughts? Will that be a problem? Is that why the world is in chaos?
I feel like I'm going off tangent, but I am working on my MA thesis, so I am questioning some of the "thoughts" I am trying to espouse. But I guess the beauty of literature is that we can all pretend that we have "thoughts" because of our ability to critically engage with texts. Or maybe that's enough for a thought?
Ademola you're so kind to read me closely and share on Twitter. To answer your question, I believe we're all thinkers, though it may be more aspirational than not. Your allusion to truth is broad and ambitious for me. But I will say that I'm not sure that the goal of thought is truth - in fact the goal of thought might be uncertainty, or something else, something transcendent perhaps. When I think of truth, I think of belief and faith and fictionality - though of course truth is also a discourse that is social and historical. I wonder if a simpler way is to move away from answers and dwell on process and experience. The experience of thinking...now it is me who fees like I'm going off tangent, sigh. Meanwhile MA thesis ba? Wow, all the best with everything!
For me, the pathway to beauty has always been towards love, so it’s interesting to think that you might be wanting to chart another course toward love and it is not beauty but thought, even though some might argue that beauty is a thought. I am thinking about this concerning the racialization process which some might say was some kind of un-beautifying of the other. This is definitely worth pondering especially as you noted, ‘what is it to be read.’ I am of the feeling that we are in some kind of edge of language era which might also be an edge of thought era. The people who are telling you that your writing is beautiful and whom you seem to be unconvinced by might also be demanding from you develop a discipline of beauty that is beyond language itself and arrives at thought that is true and pure —unpretentious love of the other in action. Thank you for taking us with you through these murky waters, we are many here.
I really like what you allude to when you say 'to develop a discipline of beauty that is beyond language itself.' You're correct to say that beauty is a thought despite my refusal to hold it in that register. My response to beauty has always been one of skepticism since it feels to me so subjective and individual, much like thought itself. But in addition, I am wary of all the things that we ascribe as beauty - things that feel entirely focused on the object, the container. The canvas for art; structure and form for literature, the body for humans etc. I wonder now if it might be more productive to decenter beauty as external/material subject, as with thought and language, and focus instead on thinking as process. Thinking as a practice of ethics, of being in a world of plurality and exchange etc. Thank you for your generous comment.
I terribly agree with you. For me there’s no separation of form and function such that beauty is a thought and the thought of beauty is a process which can be a thought itself. If so, indeed then thinking has to be a practice of ethics such that asking what is it to be read is also asking what is to write which is ultimately as you have shown in the last two essays what is it to think. I find it all delightfully mysterious if we can leave behind the form/function understanding of beauty and thoughts and immerse in the process of navigating between forms and their substance which still feels utterly hidden. If I may return to the nagging feeling that you had upon meeting Lahiri, I think this is precisely the point. Does it matter that she cannot perform authorship and its requisites as much as it matters to her that she has done her work of writing, left it all ‘out there’ for us the readers to grapple it. How much beauty and thought can we ask from the writer beyond what they have already done? Is their process not theirs to begin and end as they see fit because it is so thoroughly hard and unknown and depends on a ‘discipline of beauty beyond language itself.’ Lahiri, by just bringing forth her work in a way that moved us (many different types of us) has done the thinking as an ethic of plurality? Thank you so much again for putting this all out there. It is not beautiful, it is necessary.
This is an incredible piece!
While I will say that there's something poetic about an essay about a writer's failure as a thinker becoming itself a profound cause for introspection, I find myself asking questions about the reliability of "truth." Is "a truth" "a piece of thought?" If so, are we all thinkers? How well thought out does this truth have to be for it to be a valid "thought?" Wouldn't it be a problem if billions of people, because of their individual "truths," have thoughts? Will that be a problem? Is that why the world is in chaos?
I feel like I'm going off tangent, but I am working on my MA thesis, so I am questioning some of the "thoughts" I am trying to espouse. But I guess the beauty of literature is that we can all pretend that we have "thoughts" because of our ability to critically engage with texts. Or maybe that's enough for a thought?
Ademola you're so kind to read me closely and share on Twitter. To answer your question, I believe we're all thinkers, though it may be more aspirational than not. Your allusion to truth is broad and ambitious for me. But I will say that I'm not sure that the goal of thought is truth - in fact the goal of thought might be uncertainty, or something else, something transcendent perhaps. When I think of truth, I think of belief and faith and fictionality - though of course truth is also a discourse that is social and historical. I wonder if a simpler way is to move away from answers and dwell on process and experience. The experience of thinking...now it is me who fees like I'm going off tangent, sigh. Meanwhile MA thesis ba? Wow, all the best with everything!
You have done very well to open up more conversations, but that's the point of the discourse, I believe.
It's always a beautiful thing to read your work.
For me, the pathway to beauty has always been towards love, so it’s interesting to think that you might be wanting to chart another course toward love and it is not beauty but thought, even though some might argue that beauty is a thought. I am thinking about this concerning the racialization process which some might say was some kind of un-beautifying of the other. This is definitely worth pondering especially as you noted, ‘what is it to be read.’ I am of the feeling that we are in some kind of edge of language era which might also be an edge of thought era. The people who are telling you that your writing is beautiful and whom you seem to be unconvinced by might also be demanding from you develop a discipline of beauty that is beyond language itself and arrives at thought that is true and pure —unpretentious love of the other in action. Thank you for taking us with you through these murky waters, we are many here.
I really like what you allude to when you say 'to develop a discipline of beauty that is beyond language itself.' You're correct to say that beauty is a thought despite my refusal to hold it in that register. My response to beauty has always been one of skepticism since it feels to me so subjective and individual, much like thought itself. But in addition, I am wary of all the things that we ascribe as beauty - things that feel entirely focused on the object, the container. The canvas for art; structure and form for literature, the body for humans etc. I wonder now if it might be more productive to decenter beauty as external/material subject, as with thought and language, and focus instead on thinking as process. Thinking as a practice of ethics, of being in a world of plurality and exchange etc. Thank you for your generous comment.
I terribly agree with you. For me there’s no separation of form and function such that beauty is a thought and the thought of beauty is a process which can be a thought itself. If so, indeed then thinking has to be a practice of ethics such that asking what is it to be read is also asking what is to write which is ultimately as you have shown in the last two essays what is it to think. I find it all delightfully mysterious if we can leave behind the form/function understanding of beauty and thoughts and immerse in the process of navigating between forms and their substance which still feels utterly hidden. If I may return to the nagging feeling that you had upon meeting Lahiri, I think this is precisely the point. Does it matter that she cannot perform authorship and its requisites as much as it matters to her that she has done her work of writing, left it all ‘out there’ for us the readers to grapple it. How much beauty and thought can we ask from the writer beyond what they have already done? Is their process not theirs to begin and end as they see fit because it is so thoroughly hard and unknown and depends on a ‘discipline of beauty beyond language itself.’ Lahiri, by just bringing forth her work in a way that moved us (many different types of us) has done the thinking as an ethic of plurality? Thank you so much again for putting this all out there. It is not beautiful, it is necessary.