NOTEBOOK ON PLACE AND
THE TERRITORY OF THE OTHER
I.
{The Unquantifiable}
The vine, ridge and field are unquantifiable. They are
only themselves.
The Self in landscape is a contradiction: implies a state
of homelessness that can never be healed.
Dilemma
The Self in its nakedness is untenable—a mystery.
Regarding Identity
The Self founders in self-definition like an animal in
muddy water. Little adheres, most washes off.
The Self, in its poverty, shores up its house using the
struts of the radical will.
Disquieting Hypothesis
Where the Self ends, the myth of origins begins.
II.
{Origins}
Simple Postulate
That which must be protected by the sword implies dissenting
claims.
Not a Tautology
Only that which is incontestable can be considered Absolute.
Regarding Chapter and Verse
After Adam and Eve’s envy of God’s knowledge, the Self’s
belief in birthright was its most perilous sin.
Common Exegesis
Birthright is the failure of the Self to accept
the placeless nature of being.
De Facto
Only the Absolute sleeps at night without the fear of
the ancient, bloody sword.
Uncomfortable Thesis
The Tribe, in itself, is not holy.
III.
{Terre}
Under the Sign of Mars
The Tribe is ever alert to difference, which it
exalts to a cult of possibility.
Contributing Variable
The genealogy of difference reaches back to the
single source of the Radical Will.
While in Essence
The Tribe requires the other to determine the frontiers
of its own poverty.
Elementary, but Dangerous Given
The Tribe, unable to possess place, must create an artificial
unity born out of the happenstance of earth.
Not a Paradox
The cult of difference is always the grave of the
Self.
Unexpected Encounter
The Tribe is ever surprised before the other’s
broken body—by the eternal sameness of its blood.
IV.
{Matter and Will}
Metaphysical Review
The most Radical forms of Will are always the compromise
of spirit for matter.
Genesis of Will
The matter of the Will is always formed out of
the evasive, gaseous universe of the Mind.
Astronomical Corollary
Radical Will always engenders a form of eclipse.
Ontological Supposition
If Evil exists, it cannot be separated from its origins
in the self.
Theorem of Grief
Evil does not exist: only the eclipse that Radical
Will casts across the face of God.
In Memoriam
Those singular acts of Will whose chaos pulls the world
back to its black roots.
V.
{Final Borders}
Ideal Absolute
The Self must be divested of its longing for place to
regain its essence.
Mythologies Concerning Territory
Like the haze at midday that obscures the patient visibility
of eternal temporality.
Optimistic Postulate
Despite its homelessness, the Self can find sanctuary
in the eternal Now—the ever-renewing instant of World and Other.
Archaic Psalm
Where you go, stranger, I shall go, flesh of my flesh.
In the Light of Time
Where each one goes—through the valley of the earth, surrounded
by the low, darkening hills and thick, ivory sky—
There are no boundaries: traversed as it is by the terrible
and merciless waters of common being.
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© 2003-2005 Ars Interpres Publications.
