A Moment in Time

One may indeed read philosophy as ’the spirit if its time’ for it is some the greatest minds of the age exploring the world and themselves through the concepts, imaginations and limitations imposed on them by their time, place and culture. And yet philosophy seeks always to go beyond itself; beyond its time. It is history but the universal and eternal history, the unhistorical history, of the present moment. To philosophise is then to talk with the past and the future, from the present about the eternal. But philosophy seems always to point away from itself. It never merely preserves the moment. It is ever changing, ever expressing the changes in reality and thought which it helps produce. It is the constant, bringing about change. Perhaps thus it grasps the Truth in which it is involved. In that sense philosophy is always disproving itself. Perhaps therefore philosophy is always accompanied by religion. Which is never simply grasping the moment; but imposing it. It demands of the Truth to remain the same. It seeks to prove the present by perpetuating it. Perhaps the man of faith is the philosopher grown weary of eternal movement. ‘Let us sit and rest’ he says. ‘Let us preserve and build’. Yet thought ever restless, yearns for new frontiers. Change breaks it bonds; for now its moment-in-time gives it freedom to express itself. Yet thus realised it comes to realise its own end. Ever ending, ever giving birth to new beginnings and new moments.

As God unto the World

He wonders. Even worries. Perhaps he is taking too much pleasure in this new found freedom of meaninglessness. Everything broken down, he finds that all that remains is him. Everywhere he turns everything comes back to him-self. All thoughts are his thoughts. All the world becomes his world. All of reality exists only in him. Yet alone with his thoughts, he feels less and less at home in him-self. As thought comes to take the place of action, he becomes aware that while his actions may be his own, he is certainly not the originator of his thoughts. Attempting to grasp himself without himself he finds that he is perhaps no more than mere fleeting desires. Or perhaps something deeper and darker lurks inside. But no matter how hard he looks; he always escapes himself. Unable to give account of even himself he comes to view his thoughts with increasing suspicion. This thus leads him back to action. For even if his thoughts are strangers; his actions, though not of him, makes him. Or rather they make him in the eyes of others. And so rather than remain alone and almighty, he returns from the lofty heights where gods rule, and returns to himself and the world. And with that he realises that every man may be a God. But in a universe no greater than his own mind.

The Cruelty of Philosophy

Each philosophy is an attempt to end philosophy. Each philosopher seeks to become the last philosopher. Yet for all its trials and tribulations; philosophy lives on. Inherent is that horrible paradox; that as little as philosophy can prove Truth, can it disprove it. It cannot find Truth, yet cannot deny that there is a Truth without falling into contradictions.
Once that first man, asked that first fateful question to Thought, to reason, and expected an answer in return; man has been doomed to continue asking. After 2500 years of asking ourselves; demanding of ourselves to answer questions about things we have no experience of, some have started questioning the wisdom of this path. Existentialism, in the footsteps of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, tells us to stop philosophising, face reality, take responsibility and live. But invariably it becomes another philosophy; and he who purports to take its message seriously must then asses all its alternatives; must in fact himself become a philosopher. He who wishes to disprove philosophy must join in the search for Truth.
Is then the philosopher merely a coward artist? Who refusing to face his own creations constantly seeks to ground them in truths beyond himself? He is a great mind in a world were Though serves no higher purpose. What can he do then; but give it purpose, extol the greatness of Thought and join in its oh so futile quest for answers? And unlike his relative, the man of faith; who admits his ignorance and prays to a higher power, he is after all, well respected. An authority almost. Devoting his life to the cause of Truth! How grand and noble! No dogmas lurk here! Except of course Truth; that frightful phantasm. Like God, Truth has a beginning; but it has not end. Once they are born they refuse to die. Ever will they haunt mankind with their inexplicable delirium; holding out the hope of something more.

The Intimate Stranger

He is man of today. Not tomorrow or yesterday. He is a nomad. At home everywhere and nowhere. He never stays long in one place. At the same time he always seeks the real and authentic, and so he has to stay long enough to think that he has experienced the truth of his temporary residence, has gotten a feel of the place. Always an intimate stranger; he wishes to absorb himself in his surrounding; to let it touch and move him and at the same time he remains outside of it, always reflecting on it, never getting too attached, never getting too real, always knowing that his escape is just round the corner.
He goes to a place not to have his beliefs reinforced but to have them crushed. To have them crushed and replaced and to come out a new man. Him aim is not self-realisation but self-destruction and rebirth. He believes himself fundamentally without a permanent self to realise. He can only break down its ephemeral shell to have it rebuilt again. Everything about him is built on shaky foundations. Everything is built with the expectation of its imminent destruction.
He fears to dream, to work towards future goals, because he fears to be trapped by them. To him the future is the past’s enslavement of the present. The future exists to him not as potentiality but as a illusion. He knows it is not he who will live it. The future belongs to someone else. Nor is his past his own. Each rebirth removes from him from his past.
And yet his escape from the future and the past makes him a victim of the present. As the present invariably bring moments of unhappiness, boredom, despair he finds he can neither project towards a brighter future, nor can he draw strength from a past he no longer connects with. The present proves a trap and instead he is compelled to treat his own life from a distance; a distance not in the past nor future, but merely an abstraction. He is obliged to draw on the abstract nature of thought to create a gap between himself and his present moment. He thus remains always at a distance from himself.
In the end he watches himself as if with a passionate disinterest. As if reading a book he finds captivating yet at the same time fearing becoming too engaged in the story he disengages himself. So he fears becoming enslaved by his own life. Fears to care too much to regret its inevitable end.

Waiting for the Fall

As he watches the world become ever more empty of meaning and value and as man is ever more driven only by his own selfish pursuits, he sighs. He yearns for the time when man fought and believed; when a horizon was longer than a mere lifetime. When every meaning did not end at the fulfilment of a desire.
And yet as he comes to perceives himself, he wonders if he is not merely a remnant of older ways; a relic of a dying age. This very thought, of him out of tune with the present, takes away all strength for action. How can you fight for something which is no longer true? Which is disproving itself in front of your very eyes?
He can find no reason to look back. For it is reason that is the culprit. Reason that is so weak, so impotent, that it cannot but doubt. And in the face of doubt; what does man have but his own desires?
Yet, silently he waits. For in doubt there is hope. Hope that progress will bring ruin. Reason tells him that man cannot live by reason alone; without ideals and faith. The fall will come, and after the fall, will come the rise. And with it the belief in the Good and Just and True will return. Reason cannot but look forward; and pray that tomorrow will be better. Yet he knows; the future belongs to the past.

Letting go of Truth...

Philosophy; philos sophia; lover of wisdom; reveals itself as the fear of fallacy. And what is fear of error but the primordial dread of chaos; of the unknown. Since the genesis of mankind; he has always sought to make the unintelligible intelligible. To raise Thought above all else and demand of the world it conform to it. For man understanding comes only through seeing himself in the world: why else this love of Gods and Spirits? Why else this constant projecting of meaning towards a world that seems devoid of it? What need for meaning would a world already pregnated with one have? Does not the very fact that meaning needs to be made disprove them? For man the real always demands realisation. Truth demands articulation
May this not be the greatest fallacy and narcissism of man? Or is it the dawn of his greatest hour? For here the truth of man reveals itself. That he lacks truth. And in the meaninglessness the meaningful appears. He has been made by the world, but comes to make the world. He cannot make Truth, but he can surely live it.