Comments on: And… blank http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/ Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 20 May 2012 15:20:00 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Kim Hughes http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-754 Kim Hughes Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:51:37 +0000 http://revolvingfloor.com/?p=2041#comment-754 I think the thing that scares me most about death, more than anything, is knowing that *I* will cease to be. All my thoughts, all my memories, my quirks, will be gone. All my memories that make me *me*, all the experiences I've had and the way I remember them, make up who I am and how I react to things.<br>Having the slate wiped clean, having all my memories gone, would be like someone else living in my body. It would be like dying, and having a fledgling person walking around in my skin, trying to learn how the world works.<br><br>I try to imagine what it would be like to be in the same situation as your mother, and how I would feel upon coming back to myself. It is incredible that she made it back home without remembering any of it.<br><br>Being lost in any capacity, being a blank slate, starting a new life, can be incredibly scary, but incredibly freeing. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone and just jumping in a new city, a new experience, a new life can sometimes show us who we really are. I'm moving next week, to a new place and going back to college after a very long journey. I'm ready to see who I'll be at the end of this trip. I think the thing that scares me most about death, more than anything, is knowing that *I* will cease to be. All my thoughts, all my memories, my quirks, will be gone. All my memories that make me *me*, all the experiences I've had and the way I remember them, make up who I am and how I react to things.
Having the slate wiped clean, having all my memories gone, would be like someone else living in my body. It would be like dying, and having a fledgling person walking around in my skin, trying to learn how the world works.

I try to imagine what it would be like to be in the same situation as your mother, and how I would feel upon coming back to myself. It is incredible that she made it back home without remembering any of it.

Being lost in any capacity, being a blank slate, starting a new life, can be incredibly scary, but incredibly freeing. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone and just jumping in a new city, a new experience, a new life can sometimes show us who we really are. I'm moving next week, to a new place and going back to college after a very long journey. I'm ready to see who I'll be at the end of this trip.

]]> By: amandaemerson http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-722 amandaemerson Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:26:53 +0000 http://revolvingfloor.com/?p=2041#comment-722 Jerry--many, many thanks. I am gratified that the essay was meaningful for you, and I am heartened by your "enlightening in the long run." I end the essay on such a dim (or anguished) note, rejecting such returns to hope, but that may after all be a narrow rather than courageous way to conceive of these blanks. Thank you. Jerry–many, many thanks. I am gratified that the essay was meaningful for you, and I am heartened by your “enlightening in the long run.” I end the essay on such a dim (or anguished) note, rejecting such returns to hope, but that may after all be a narrow rather than courageous way to conceive of these blanks. Thank you.

]]> By: amandaemerson http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-721 amandaemerson Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:03:29 +0000 http://revolvingfloor.com/?p=2041#comment-721 Thank you very much, Bob! I am struck by your reference to freedom. I don’t think I paid much attention to how thoroughly the essay has freedom as a concern, but it makes a lot of sense now. The wonder of not-being is a fear of absence but also, of course, a fear of freedom (of losing it or having it—I am not sure which). Weirdly, I picked up Alan Watts’s <i>The Wisdom of Insecurity</i> at Borders Friday. Are you familiar with this short, 1950s work? Watts is a philosopher, so he’s more analytical, more succinct, slightly less awestruck—does less mystifying than I do—but he treats some of the same issues. He plays the keynote of freedom much more coherently. It’s a good, refreshingly easy (which is not a jab at Derrida!), but thought-provoking read. Your comments and Watts’s work called out some elements of the essay that I wasn’t seeing before. Thank you very much, Bob! I am struck by your reference to freedom. I don’t think I paid much attention to how thoroughly the essay has freedom as a concern, but it makes a lot of sense now. The wonder of not-being is a fear of absence but also, of course, a fear of freedom (of losing it or having it—I am not sure which). Weirdly, I picked up Alan Watts’s The Wisdom of Insecurity at Borders Friday. Are you familiar with this short, 1950s work? Watts is a philosopher, so he’s more analytical, more succinct, slightly less awestruck—does less mystifying than I do—but he treats some of the same issues. He plays the keynote of freedom much more coherently. It’s a good, refreshingly easy (which is not a jab at Derrida!), but thought-provoking read. Your comments and Watts’s work called out some elements of the essay that I wasn’t seeing before.

]]> By: Jerry Prentice http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-719 Jerry Prentice Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:50:30 +0000 http://revolvingfloor.com/?p=2041#comment-719 Hi Amanda<br>In this short essay you put me in touch with many of the blanks in my past, most notably trauma induced (war), drug induced (LSD), and depression induced (perhaps thyroid or legal drug). It leaves me wandering and wondering. Blank times have been both joyful and devastating, in either case enlightening in the long run. For me, the ego has relinquished sovereignty grudgingly, sometimes only when temporarily obliterated. <br><br>The essay is masterful. Thank you.<br><br>Jerry Hi Amanda
In this short essay you put me in touch with many of the blanks in my past, most notably trauma induced (war), drug induced (LSD), and depression induced (perhaps thyroid or legal drug). It leaves me wandering and wondering. Blank times have been both joyful and devastating, in either case enlightening in the long run. For me, the ego has relinquished sovereignty grudgingly, sometimes only when temporarily obliterated.

The essay is masterful. Thank you.

Jerry

]]> By: Robert Swan http://revolvingfloor.com/issues/5/and-blank/comment-page-1/#comment-718 Robert Swan Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:54:30 +0000 http://revolvingfloor.com/?p=2041#comment-718 Wonderful analysis...I find myself seeking out the blank (and what I think to be my creative and more human self) more and more, essentially freedom from analytical thought, paranoia & etc. Derrida talks about the "catastrophe of memory" and the little deaths we suffer as we increasingly fail to recall the details of our own lives.... Frankly, the catastrophe of memeory (and the work of "mourning" these memory losses) may not be such a bad thing...depending, of course, on what elements of your life you would like to be free from (sadly, I'm not sure we can pick and choose). I think Derrida would enjoy your piece...as it is clearly an effort to mourn the loss of memory (and closely related personality traits)...the fear you speak of in being free, really, is the fear that we will simply fail to exist now and forever more in our own or anyone's memory...this is the catastrophe of memory for Derrida, for me not so much if I can exist in a state of freedom...whatever that might look like in real life. Wonderful analysis…I find myself seeking out the blank (and what I think to be my creative and more human self) more and more, essentially freedom from analytical thought, paranoia & etc. Derrida talks about the “catastrophe of memory” and the little deaths we suffer as we increasingly fail to recall the details of our own lives…. Frankly, the catastrophe of memeory (and the work of “mourning” these memory losses) may not be such a bad thing…depending, of course, on what elements of your life you would like to be free from (sadly, I'm not sure we can pick and choose). I think Derrida would enjoy your piece…as it is clearly an effort to mourn the loss of memory (and closely related personality traits)…the fear you speak of in being free, really, is the fear that we will simply fail to exist now and forever more in our own or anyone's memory…this is the catastrophe of memory for Derrida, for me not so much if I can exist in a state of freedom…whatever that might look like in real life.

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