"Thomas the Obscure"

Greetings,

I figured that I might as well share a few of the secret papers I've been writing for my philosophy class. They are short and generally answer a question posed by the teacher based on some sort of reading. This particular week the assignment was to read a decent amount of Maurice Blanchot's "Thomas the Obscure" and then write whatever came to mind. The title I took from Pirandello's Uno Nessuno Centomila (One No One One Hundred Thousand), published in Italy in 1925 with the first English translation in 1934. I haven't been able to find it in book stores as of yet. It reads, "And life doesn't conclude. It cannot conclude. If tomorrow it concludes, it's over."

“E la vita non conclude. Non può concludere. Se domani conclude, è finita.”

Death. The end of the end. My own incapacity to understand what I define as the end sparks my continued fascination with its idea.

Water forms to all things at a constant rate of infinity. Its sameness comes in its ability to change. Will one ever step in the same river? The answer would be yes and no, according to Blanchot. But does water die with this form? What does water look like by itself? Can it exist without touching something? Can it stop for just a moment and realize its being, it reason, its philosophy and consciousness?

No. Water doesn’t give a shit about its existence. It knows how to do one thing: exist. And it does it: without questioning, without being, without even knowing what is is. Water moves because it moves and it stays because it stays. There is no philosophical cause and effect, there is no underlying theme. It’s water!

Yes. Water knows how to be and thus perpetuates its very desire to do so. Water is conscious of its forms at all times and proceeds to empower itself as well as its environment in order to exemplify the value of being water. It does not fear the unknown nor does it shadow in the doubt of its own reflection. It does not need to justify its power nor force, and it exists always.

Ok maybe.

Blanchot, like all great philosophers and writers, desires something. He wants to rid himself of his form, of his individual nature, seeing in himself this being that is trapped inside his body. The single person is not an expedient but a curse. The best way to conquer the notion of “the other?” Destroy him!

And it reminded me so much of Pirandello’s last novel. He aims at becoming the other, at trying to perceive himself not by seeing himself through his eyes but by seeing himself through the eyes of others. In short, he wants to see himself live, he wants to experience his own life not from within himself but from outside of himself. He is determined to become everything around him and he eventually does. I see Thomas doing the same thing. He strips himself of his identity, down to nothing, an epoché if you will. He becomes nothing with thought. Which begs the question: can we think without language? Sitting in my car during a break at work I tried to outsmart myself. Better yet I tried to trick myself. Surely if I would have said, “Yes,” than I would have contradicted my own thought. If I could think without language, why would I feel the need to answer the question? Surely I could communicate with myself without using language, at least without using its form, namely words. Yet that did not satisfy me.

I immediately thought aha! No is the correct answer, thought is dependent on language! But it all sounded too good to be true, too easy of a conclusion drawn from what I feel is a very compound question (the egotism is settling itself quite nicely). There is no answer, rather the answer comes in one form: yes and no: opposites being the same because they are different. Zero is infinity, every thing is no thing, etc. And a range of emotion and thought began pouring into my head like some sort of volcanic eruption. It did not happen fast, but it was thick, and it was hot: a stream-of-consciousness.

What boring animals we are, looking for meaning and its opposite, sitting around debating, trying to fix the problems that we create. Can we not enjoy ourselves in some other way? Why must we continue to assume that there is a void and that we need to fill it with something?

Is death the ultimate freedom? Socrates surely thought so.

Reality is based on assumptions that drown us, chaos becomes order when chaos has a form, but is it not the same thing? Are not, therefore, all extremes the same truth, that it is a lie?

Hierarchies and the like, why the constant need to restart, to regroup, to build, to destroy. Why the need to be, to exist, to justify something we do not understand? And understand what, what is there to understand? And again I come full-circle, coming to a similar conclusion: create the universe again, make your own rules, justify them, get others to catch on, become a scholar (a bullshit artist).

*While writing these papers I feel the sensation of insanity, an idea of freedom that continues to expand. I am getting more and more abstract, slowing breaking down barriers and rules that govern both the educational system as well as the universe in and out of itself. In this class, at least, I do not fear continuing to think and act in this manner. But I do know that the worst is yet to come, and that my complete degeneration will not cease. What do you think?

-Anthony