Pure Immanence

Shortly before his death, the philosopher Deleuze wrote about what he called "pure immanence". It was the last piece he ever wrote. A daring, and some would say naive move, to entertain an idea such as purity in a cold-hearted intellectual world. It is much easier to tear apart something like purity, to deny it, to destroy it with cheap and easy questions. And immanence! Who talks of immanence these days? And why bother? Why not tackle the hard questions? Relevant questions such as the environment, gender; questions of justice, of governance, of war and peace. Why, at that late date in his life, did Deleuze not put his mind to such grand and contemporary issues?

But think of Deleuze, the man, for just a minute.

Beginning with the most stark of facts -- he took his own life. Deleuze suffered from an illness that was killing him. Rather than continue with his suffering, at the time of his own choosing, on his own terms, he ended his life. Just weeks before, at the time of his last writing, Deleuze was all-too aware of the idea of immanence -- the immanence of his own death, the immanence of suffering. Yet, at that time, when he wrote of immanence, he wrote of it as if it were life.

Derrida called Deleuze the "thinker of the event," I consider him a "thinker of life." His readings of Spinoza, of Hume, Berkley, Nietzsche, Foucault, of so many, continually brought forth a life which is lived, life in the midst of living. A live beyond words, beyond descriptions, beyond labels. A life whose very "immanence" could never be reduced by any identity, any narrative, any essence.

Deleuze often in his writing evoked the idea of life, Alive, of immanence, but, in these last words he wrote he allowed the idea to emerge through two particular images.

First of all, there was this character which Charles Dickens created. A miserable, nasty old man, who pushed every caring soul away. Yet, when this man was upon the brink of death, a community emerged, a people gathered around, and whatever could be done to save this man's life was quickly and eagerly done. At that particular moment, poised between life and death, that man's identity, his history meant nothing. However, in the midst of that very moment the man's life came to mean everything.

Secondly, Deleuze talked of small children. I cannot recall Deleuze ever discussing small children before in his writings, but in those last days this is precisely what he did. He particularly noted their play and their faces. He spoke with adoring words, tender words, words of love. A dying man gazing into the eyes of childhood. No, no... not childhood, into the eyes of a child. And there he saw what he called "pure power" and "bliss." It was life, simple unadulterated life, lived in a moment, all focus upon that moment. He saw joy -- beautiful joy.

These two images, the dying old man, the eyes of a child, brought alive for Deleuze the idea of pure immanence.

Yet, this immanence, this life, is not a rare thing. It is everywhere around us. But one must pay attention, one must, as Wittgenstein said, "look, don't think." For pure immanence is not understood, it cannot be claimed in language, rather it is felt, one brushes-up against it. In the realm of language one can play with it, invite it, talk of it in fleeting terms, but one can never approach its definition, never truly know it.

My cat has just joined me -- she sits upon my desk. It's in the eyes... between her eyes and mine. She looks directly into my eyes then she calmly closes her own as only a cat is able to do. In that moment a bliss breaks into the day, just as it did when Deleuze looked into the eyes of a child, just as it did as he watched the child in her play... A gentle explosion of bliss.

Pure immanence -- not evasive and endangered, no unattainable perfectionism, as some may think, but contagious, even explosive, and always close to hand.

And our words... they are anything but useless. They can call, invite, they can evoke and invoke. Oh yes, yes, and best of all, words can sing. I venture to guess that one day some anthropologist, or perhaps a biologist, will come to the conclusion that the spoken word is simply an evolution of the lyrical word -- the singing of song came first! Pure immanence... and the voice of song.

As for life, it comes eagerly. But, whether the old man on his death bed, whether the eyes of the child, whether the bliss of a cat, one thing repeatedly emerges -- life always comes, and only comes in the moment of its living.

Becomings

Aphorisms about the Idea of Becomings

While I was particularly inspired by Deleuze, Nietzsche and Derrida in my thinking here, I wish to talk of these ideas more in the first-person-singular.

Perhaps there is no other way to write other than first-person-singular.


Becomings I - Nature and the Alive

I wish to talk of Becomings rather than change.

I wish to talk of Becomings as moving toward the Alive, moving toward beauty, hope, connection and other gifts of life.

I wish to talk of Becomings as connected to the becomings of nature.

I wish to see our human worlds as indistinct from nature.

I wish to see our Becomings as sharing much in common with the constant Becomings emerging within the grass, the rivers, the trees, amidst the lives of birds, fish, insects.

We know, of course, that the language of nature can itself invite separations – nature/culture; natural/artificial; natural/human -- distinctions that can set the stage for regimes of violations and violences. Yet, we still wish to talk of nature. We still wish to see ourselves connected to those vast plateaus wherein all life moves.

Becomings II - Community & Difference

The relationship between Becoming Community and Becoming Bodies is a complicated one.

I put forward that community is built upon difference, yet it is often imagened as built upon unity. It seems to me that unity can never Become at all -- it is an illusion of Becoming. The creation of unity takes something like force and power, submission and subjugation -- such attributes are antithetical to Community and to Becomings. Force and power are able to create impossible-to-realize hopes and dreams of unity, they can create an image of something that may appear like unity, but they cannot create unity, and they cannot create community.

Only difference can truly Become in these social worlds -- and the Becoming of community is built upon such difference. We can approach each other to understand, to differ, to be surprised, but we can never approach each other for the purpose of unification. Life, joy, love -- all such communal treasures, only come into life because of the differences which inevitable emerge, and because of the response we offer to such differences -- not through any illusion of sameness.

Time to discard the intensity of the alliance between difference and conflict. While the two can certainly be found together, difference also pairs up with curiosity, admiration, attraction, desire, love, humour, and on and on... The very biological notion of sexuality is built upon the necessity of difference.

Becomings III - Negations & Affirmations

These Becomings which we experience do not emerge from negation processes.

The ideas of negation and affirmation are meaningless unless connected to something of importance. Negation does not stand on its own -- we connect it to the idea of the Alve. Negation means a great deal when it is seen as the negation of things living. The same with affirmation. Affirmation on its own could stand for many things -- it could even stand for the affirmation of destruction. However, we are referring to it as the affirmation of the Alive. Affirmations of the movements of life.

Now, clearly, negations surround us. Out of force of habit, we repeatedly participate in them. Negations are ingrained in our thought. They seem integral to the ways of our institutions.

We are taught that change emerges because we face up to negations. We are to learn what is wrong with us, we acknowledge what is wrong with us, and then we change based on such learnings.

However, in life, and in my work with people, I see very little of this. Negations are far more likely to create further reactive negations in response -- negations triggering more and more rounds of negations. Also they are likely to create a depressive paralysis, an immobility that breeds further depressive negations.

There seems to be a powerful tie between those experiences we see as depression and worlds dominated by processes of negations. Reactive and negative forces tend to glorify depression. These forces inform us that it is good to bear the burdens of one's errors, to acknowledge the depths of one's sins – this is often thought of as being responsible.

This is the age–old tradition of sin/redemption. In this tradition our relations to the natural world swarming around us are condemned. Such connections were historically considered "pagan," and therefore undesirable. In the same way we are now informed of our sinfulness, of our transgressions against, not imminent forces surrounding us in nature, but forces transcendent to nature, forces informed by higher powers. We are also informed of the requisite transcendent mechanisms which are able to redeem us. People are thereby pulled away from nature, and from the forces of life, and become dependent upon the transcendent worlds of redemption inherent within our human institutions.

Thought becomes one of the tools of transcendence. Thought, in this manner, must not emerge from relation to nature, or relation to the lives of people, rather thought comes to bear upon us as an authority which must be accepted, as a statement of truth, from a separate and transcendent plane, which directs and forms our thinking. All of this, outside of our relations to life with nature and people.

Thought is not just used this way by religious authorities, it is used by most institutional authorities, including education, the workplaces, government, the media, special interest groups, etc. It is a tradition handed down to modern institutions from our religious roots. In this view, thought is owned, it is a possession of an established order, it is not something which comes from and returns to our living engagements.

Yet, inspite of such influences, thought, as it is connected to a living and responsive world, is very much alive. It is clearly evident in much of our everyday relations and interactions. If we look, it is there in abundance.

Becomings IV - Never Fixed... Always Flowing

We can dare to put aside such influences of negation. We can enter with the grass and the trees, the grasshopper and the crow, those unmanaged and joyful possibilities of Becoming.

We can think of Becomings rather than identity. For we are not an identity, some thing, some finality that can be boxed and wrapped up. We are many Becomings at any possible time, constantly in the midst of various flows. Nothing ever fixed.

Becomings flow through us on the backs of the gifts and goods which move through our worlds. For example, we don't have love, we don't own it, hold it as a thing. Rather, we flow up and toward love, we respond to loves, and we constantly are called to respond again and again. Loves always move. And loves always diverge and multiply.

Becomings are always the result of many hands. But the many hands never create just one thing, and there is never just one perspective, and there is always, always difference. Community is the very recognition of such differences, and it is the connections which come forth from amongst those differences. Becomings always happen in numbers beyond one, and even beyond two.

Becomings are never manipulated through self-help or through the cult of the therapeutic. Becomings are always in some form of friendship with chaos. They flow through us as we immerse ourselves in the chaotic abundance of our communal realms, as we participate in the varied becomings of others.

Thinking Life

We have been searching for images, metaphors, narratives, the poetic -- and any other pieces of thought or action -- which can approach that sense of the living-of-life, and which can further draw us into the midst of those places where the Alive occurs.

We are also aware that much thought does not emerge from and does not return to those places where life lives and moves.

Instead certain orders, structures are applied to life. Hierarchies are imposed as if they are superior to the actual living-of-life, and, as if removed from the influences of living moments.

Strong and fixed vantage points are thereby created, far removed from the influences of lower or more natural powers. From such positions people and nature are considered more able to be organized and acted upon.

Through image, thought, through word and action we search for ways and means to bring honour to the living of life, the lived life, the Alive. We see this honouring emerging amidst diversities and abundances, through the myriad of possibilities wherein creation and life can meet.

We also see this honouring amidst our rhizome interaction with individuals, families and communities.

Life Persists

Images from Portugese Tile Art

Break open the sod, leave the soil exposed. In short time all such real estate is occupied -- no agent needed. Such space is invaded with organisms, ready, just waiting for such an event.

They say, of course, "Location, location, location!" But, not so picky here, for in every corner where moisture and nutrient coincide -- abundance encroaches. Life persists....

A potential predator approaches the nest. For both male and female there is no fear, just a purity of insistence, an intensity of desire directed toward the protection of one’s own.

They scold, they dive-bomb, they attack. They cause the intruder to jump and dodge. They put themselves in repetitive jeopardy, all for the sake of their own, their loves. Life persists...

After the tide recedes we turn over a rock, almost every centimetre is territorialized by organisms, often life upon life: oyster upon stone, oyster upon oyster, barnacle upon oyster, crab upon barnacle, starfish upon oyster and barnacle. The crab scurries off to the side.

We turn away from this rock. Soon after a seagull arrives. Bird upon starfish, stealing away, consuming.

Space in the tidal zone is never empty. Even the sand above the high-tide line is made up of calcium, coarse and crushed, yesterday’s crustacean-constructions now sea-worn particles. Laying upon such particles are hominoid sun-worshipers. Life refuses even the resemblance of deficit. Life persists...

Past relations mostly slipped away – what we think of as craziness does that. Typical life expectations now beyond evasive, he pushes the shopping cart, he spits on the sidewalk, he finds a meal where he can, he obtains a fix by any means. Against odds – Life persists...

In tall buildings, amidst grandeur, clear expectations, dressed in grey and white pin-striping, she pursues what she knows she deserves. She looks for money, but more than money. She searches for abstracts like power, authority, recognition. Such desires seem most illusory, yet, through it all, she won’t give up. For, over and over -- Life persists...

Words on Skin

Why is it that
All too often
Those cold
Violations Isolations
Creep upon souls
When bodies
Try to connect
With Words?

Why is it that
The most tender
Of moments
Those times

Charmed and beautiful
Often feel
Wordless?


Out beyond words
Spectrums of touch
More than

Fingertips and skin

Caressing
In sound
Stroking tapping moving striking
In words

Or perhaps
No

Not words -- voices

Voices
Keeping pace
With feet and breath
Working as tireless hands

And voices
Talking/Writing
Words more than words
Equal to music
Before nouns
Beyond verbs
Antecedents of laughter

Speaking not in the ear
But upon the skin

Now these words
May indicate
Absolutely nothing --
Yet the actor reads from
The New York City phonebook
And his audience is in tears

Laughter not contained

Words
Moist with
Tongue teeth and lips
Lungs and larynx

Words
Ceasing meaning
Yet flowing
Between and among
Vibrating as reeds
Bodies as reeds

Twin reeds
As oboe or bassoon

Producing the unrepeatable moment

With tone, timbre and melody
Emerging through the middle of
(Not the body, but)
Bodies
Many bodies


Before meanings
There was the rhythm of tongues

Persistent hammerings of rhyme

Before understandings
There were polyphonies

A proliferation of dictions

Before truth
There were excesses of voice
Harmonies
Nuance
Dissonance

Before any intellect
Before any ideas or mind
And after
Long past all words

In two twilights of thought

There were
Voices

And there will certainly be

Song
Hymn and mantra

A joyful

Chaotic

Inescapable

Collision of

The Lyric

The Bully -- Part I

What it Takes to Create a Deficit...


Before continuing with this posting I want to remind people of the previous posting where I recommended a visit to the new blog of a young man named Mat. Please check it out.

http://www.tourettesgiftexchange.blogspot.com/

Now, on with the current posting...

***

Just for a moment, consider a particular young man, we will call him George. George is not a real person, but a made-up character, more an accumulation of many characters. Following are some of the more typical ways by which educators, other professionals, and many others might talk of George.

***

George is often a frustration to both staff and other children. Out on the school playground he is known for confronting and pushing other children, even blackmailing them to get his way. Therefore, it is not difficult to see how George would be frequently described as a bully!

In the classroom George repeatedly does not cooperate with the educational learning objectives, and he can be disruptive to the learning of the other students. He is seen to have some serious difficulties in his ability to learn . Therefore, based on this information, George is not only a bully, he is also learning disabled and behaviourally challenged.

It is reported that George’s family has many difficulties. Apparently his dad can become very angry and even violent, particularly when he has been drinking. His mom seems isolated/removed from school and community. She is perceived as somewhere between just lacking in the realm of parenting skills to a harsher view of being irresponsible in her parenting duties. George often comes to school smelling, clearly not having bathed for some time, and he frequently comes to school with no lunch. So, we now have more information about George – his family is dysfunctional, and George’s difficulties are compounded by a family history of violence, along with alcohol and drug problems.

Many children, and many adults can be described in the manner we have talked of George. But, to talk this way, even to understand a person in this way, there are several disciplines that must be put into practice. I say “disciplines” because these ways of talking and knowing are not part of the usual flow of human experience, they must be learned, and, I argue, it takes something akin to discipline for people to actually think and act in these ways.

What are these disciplines?

1. First of all, time must be understood as something which can be stopped, and must be stopped abruptly on certain occasions. Time must cease to flow -- at our command. A great example is the perceived need to stop time upon George’s bullying behaviour -- to limit our attention to the single episode or episodes which represent such bullying behaviour. Time could be experienced within its varied flows, and, within such flows bullying becomes a glancing moment, along with all other glancing moments. It takes discipline, years of training, to learn NOT to look at life from within these flows. We find ourselves instead learning to understand life by ceasing time at specific and prescribed moments.

2. These stopping points, where we make time cease, are to be used as spaces for the creation of language. Only we are not to see such processes as creation at all, rather we must see them as processes for discovering truth, of assessment, processes for the determination of the correct and accurate language to be applied to this person.

3. Not just any language is applied to George as he is stopped in the bullying moment, it must be a language of deficit. George is to be seen as having certain traits which are given words such as bullying, learning disability, hyperactivity-attention deficit disorder. Many other potential disorders, deficits and spectrums are also available to be applied to George and his family. However, these traits are actually not traits at all, they are indicators of deficit, they are chasms, holes, empty spaces. They connote a tragic emptiness which is to characterize both George, and his family. Deficit is thereby firmly described, it is professionally ascribed, and it is clearly seen to be residing within the very bodies of George, his mom and dad (it takes a curious and bizarre twist in language to see deficit, as if it is not truly an emptiness, but rather, against all the logic of emptiness, it becomes a thing, and as a thing it is therefore able to reside.)

4. Attempts must be made to fill such emptiness. There are typically clear rules about who is able to administer the attempted filling of these deficits. First of all, these people must be professionals. They must be recognized as such, with education and titles. There will be a hierarchy of such professionals, those higher on the hierarchy will determine what type of action must be taken, while those lower on the hierarchy will be designated to implement these actions. Community may be seen as important for the healing, the filling, however, it must be carefully monitored and regulated. The child and family must be protected from the chaos which community is seen to bring. Community is therefore helpful only if is capable of working in accordance with the professional plan.

5. All the above processes must be assigned economic value. Monies are to be attached to each level and each action to be taken. The need for money continues the ongoing process of stopping time, identifying a problem, applying language to describe such a problem, ensuring that the language is firmly within the realm of deficit, and then implementing interventions designed to supposedly fill the deficit.

The ability to learn such disciplines takes numerous forms of training implemented over years. Many of us who work in the therapeutic professions know these discipline processes intimately.

At this point in time George and his family are firmly described with words of deficit, and professionals of various types may be assigned to work with them to assist in filling the described deficits. There is also often a communal overflow in the deficit language, for many others, who are not part of the professional network, will accept the deficit language as truths which knowing persons have placed upon George and his family.

However... I see much hope...

We will explore such hope in an upcoming posting.

Introducing Mat...

Life With-and-Beyond Tourette's Syndrome

I want you to check out a new blog. It is by a young man I know well. His name is Mat. Mat has been dealing with Tourette's Syndrome his whole life, something which has been a huge challenge for him and his mom. However, as I have grown to know Mat I have learned so much, not just about Tourette's Syndrome, not even just about living with Tourette's Syndrome, but about life... about what it means to be Alive.

Mat's blog just recently opened up. In it he shares his poems, artwork and other thoughts. I hope you take the opportunity to look it over.

http://www.tourettesgiftexchange.blogspot.com/