Stay awhile and listen

Long time no see! My routine has been shaken over the past couple of months, in the aftermath of the end of term, the holidays, the wrap-up of a work project, the endless paperwork for my Master’s enrolment. However, the truth is: ever since I heard of what digital gardens are, the idea of keeping a simple blog started to feel uninspiring. I’m far too Deleuzian for that.

Speaking of which, I wish I were enjoying his and Guattari’s Mille Plateaux better. So far, it’s been gruelling. I’m already familiar with most of their ideas; they’re preaching to the choir. Also, much like their L’anti-Œdipe, the book still feels overtly Freudian, despite their critical stance towards it. And, at times, their defence of schizophrenia borders on an unwarranted romanticisation of mental illness.

By contrast, Byung-Chul Han’s Vita Contemplativa has been a short, delightful surprise, as it weaves together philosophical interests of mine that rarely overlap: Heidegger, Arendt, Deleuze, Foucault, Patristics, Zen, Thomism, Marxism. It also explores a subject I’ve grown rather fond of: silence, festivities, contemplation, the drive to ornament. All things that make life sweet and unproductive.

Free time was not meant to be killed. When murdered, time becomes but a dead weight in the psyche. Time is not to be killed, but lived, lively. It need not, it should not become just another slot in a calendar to be filled with potentially random activities. It’s an escape from all measurable dimensions of efficiency and productivity. Only through such time are experience and culture formed.

A while ago, an interviewee on a documentary mentioned how freer the seaside cities felt. There, he argued, people could turn their backs to the urban life with its watches and metrics. They could sit under the sun and feed on its warmth. They could touch the millennia on the sand beneath their feet. They could gaze at the infinite blue sky and its mirrored aquagreen image.

We are one with the world. We are a community, an ecosystem. Men are of immense age, to quote Jung. It takes time to realise and achieve this emotional plenitude, to reach this spiritual fulfilment. And although time is needed, the opposite can be said about effort. A book, a cup of tea and a room with a view should suffice. A painting to lose yourself in. A buzzy crowd. The woods.

I wanted to talk about the last couple of months in this post, but I got carried away. Hope you enjoyed the ride either way. Jæja… Do know I feel happy and loved. And, to quote No Doubt’s Sparkle, I just want you to be happy, too. I finally hung that Venetian flag I’d meant to buy months ago. I was gifted notebooks that are works of art themselves. I’ve walked round. Studied a lot. Changed glasses. Met new people, parted ways with others, visited friends. That is all to say: they live. But so do we.