Reading Heidegger on Chemo

Gesamtausgabe Band 53: Anmerkungen zu Hölderlins Hymne "Der Ister"
provides very enjoyable and thoughtful reading while here at Virchow, especially when you can see (and then ignore) the (mute) TV images the other patient in the room is watching from the private commercial stations all day.

And for variety, when I need to let a couple of sections solidify reflectively in my mind, I pick up John Waters' Role Models for a taste of truly tasteful trashy extravagance of the artistic mind.
Roth's Nemesis is also waiting to be begun, and there is a volume of lesser known one-acters by Tennesse Williams also on the shelf.

And if the counts are too low, or the chemo and the rest has just left me too tired, then a nap after lunch is also allowed.

After all, I have to drag out the laptop and check in here every once in a while, also news sources, to make sure they haven't further screwed up the world while I haven't been watching as closely.
That the plagiarist ex-Dr. not at all noble Guttenberg finally resigned from his position of Defense Minister here, still claiming he has done nothing wrong, may be the reason his university now accuses him of intentional plagiarism and has turned the whole thing over to the state attorney for investigation and possible charges.
That Kadaffi is still around is a reason to wish all those against him as much strength and endurance in their battle to shake off the yoke of tyranny as possible.
And my personal current experience should be a reminder to those in the country from which I hail of how important universal health insurance truly is

Thinkerly Thinking

• Questioning
• Detachment from beings
• Contemplation of Being
• No-ing, no-ment, nothingness=Being
• Attunement to the tuning of Being
• Inception without causation
• Ab-grounding rather than effecting
• Poetry
• Taciturnity
• Being ises Being.
• Thinking is thanking.

Look and think about ....

What Can Never Happen ...

Only death can conclusively happen, but it can, paradoxically, never happen to ME, as I then will no longer BE there, since my being-there is into death, but halted by it, so death can never happen to my being-there, only to my having-been-there, which is also an eternal presence, spawned not out of the past, but out of the FUTURE. It is so wonderful that we can think.

Widerstehen dem Nichts

The original version of the Hölderlin passage Philippe Sollers places at the front of Discours Parfait:

«Je angefochtener wir sind vom Nichts, das, wie ein Abgrund, um uns her uns angähnt, oder auch vom tausendfachen Etwas der Gesellschaft und der Tätigkeit der Menschen, das gestaltlos, seel- und lieblos uns verfolgt, zerstreut, um so leidenschaftlicher und heftiger und gewaltsamer muß der Widerstand von unsrer Seite werden. Oder muß er es nicht?»

-Hölderlin an den Bruder, 2. November 1797: Sämtliche Werke und Briefe. Hrsg. von Günter Mieth. Berlin und Weimar, 1970. Bd.4, S.283

Word - On the Completion of a Thoughtful Reading

»Wort? Die lautlose Stimme des Seyns.«
»Das Wort nimmt in den Anspruch das Wesen des Menschen dergestalt, daß es ihn für das Da-sein beansprucht.«
«Durch Erdenken der Efahrung des Seyns --> (Ereignis).«

[MH GA71 Das Ereignis, §314, S.283-4]
Word? the soundless tuned-voice of Being.
The word places such a claim on the essence (essential-sway) of man that it claims him for the being-there.
Through the bethinking of the beholding-experience of Beyng --> (Enowning).

[RG trans.]

Enowning: the only event.

Being in the World !

放....................

For Your Consideration

« Il y a des choses très intéressantes sur les filles et leur mère, sujet à vrai dire inépuisable, comme le ressac. »

- PhS on Montherlant, L'Infini n°108

There are some very interesting things about daughters and their mother, quite honestly an inexhaustible topic, like undertow.

« Woher stammt die Lust an der Besinnungslosigkeit, die jede Gelegenheit zur Flucht in die Aktivität der Aktion bejubelt? »
- MH GA76, S.13

Where does the desire for unconsciousness (non-reflection) that cheers for every opportunity to flee into the activity of action come from?

Is the choice to phase out endlessly on something a free choice, all the way through?

Gewesene Freiheit

Liberty that has become, is !

Guest 13_17
par Paroles_des_Jours

Thinking Again, and Happy About It !

Um das Bleibende stiften zu können, muß der Dichter selbst ein bleibender sein;
er muß das Eine vermögen, zu bleiben in dem Vielen, was in der langen Zeit zu
tragen und im Gesang zu sagen bleibt.
[MH GA Bd.52, §65, S.194]

And love indeed finds its essential base in words.

What It's All About . . .

» Es handelt sich darum, ob das Wesen des ungeschichtlich gewordenen planetarischen Menschen ins Wanken und damit in die Besinnung gebracht wird. «

[MH GA Bd.52, §2, S.6]

It's all about whether the essential being of the global human become unhistorical can be shaken and thus brought into consideration.

[transl.RG]

Il s'agit de si l'aître essentiel de l'homme planétaire devenu non-historique peut être ébranlé et ainsi mis en considération.

[transl.RG]

Consider This...

Something to think about

• before the US election in November
• before the Brandenburg local elections on September 28
• before the Bavarian state elections on the same day

Something to think about before you

• deny others the rights you have
• envy those who have less than you
• opt out of systems of social solidarity
• claim you can't be a bigot because some of your best friends are ***.

(If you are looking at this, then someone in your family or among your friends is definitely *** and will be very disappointed in you if you vote for backwardness!)

Es geht allein darum, darüber zu wachen, daß uns die anbrechende Fragwürdigkeit, die Vorläuferschaft für die Größe, nicht entrissen wird durch billige Antworten und Aberglauben.
[MH: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, GA Bd.31 §15 S.143]

It's all about taking care to ensure that dawning questions worthy of consideration, precursors of greatness, are not ripped from our thoughts by cheap answers and superstitions.

Il s'agit seulement de veiller à ce que les questions dignes d'être posées naissantes, précurseurs de grandeur, ne nous soient pas arrachées par des réponses faciles et des superstitions.

[French & English versions my own]

A Note on Freedom

"[die] Freiheit des Daseins ist nur im Sichbefreien des Daseins. Das Sichbefreien des Deseins geschieht aber je nur, wenn es sich zu sich selbst entschließt, d.h. für sich als das Da-sein sich erschließt." - [MH GA Bd.29/30 §32(b)]

"die innerste Notwendigkeit der Freiheit des Daseins [, ...] die Notwendigkeit des Verstehens, daß allererst das Dasein sich wieder ins Freie bringen muß, als Da-sein begreifen muß. [...] die Menschheit im Menschen befreien, [...] d.h. das Wesen des Menschen befreien, das Dasein in ihm wesentlich werden lassen." - [MH GA Bd.29/30 §38]

Freedom of (human)being-there is only in (human)being-there's self-liberation. This self-liberation only occurs, however, when the (human)being-there opts for and to itself, i.e. opens up to itself as the Being-There.
the innermost urgency of the freedom of (human)being-there ... the urgency of understanding that first of all (human)being-there must bring itself back into the free, grasp itself as Being-There. ... liberate the human in man, ... i.e. liberate the essential sway of man, let the being-there within him essentially sway.
-[RG English transl.]

To put a lot into a nutshell of my own words:
In time and of time, man, being-there, is alone capable of distinguishing beings and Being, glimpsing the Nothing, of conceiving of death, enabling time, and IS therefore FREE. And if man does not take on this task, it will not be, and man will not fully be.

Contemplating Freedom

Having read this essay several times, today I found myself concentrating on two paragraphs concerning freedom. In a treatise on the danger and chance of technology (not of technologies, but of the essence of technology, the concept of Being it derives from), these thoughts on freedom, liberty, Freiheit, liberté may appear abstract. Perhaps that is precisely the reason we so often do not consider freedom in essence. Perhaps that is precisely the danger. So here, at the risk of bemusing some, disturbing others, and giving some few pause to think, I am providing my own translation of those few lines, followed by the original. For the moment the English version satisfies me somewhat. Whether it still will do so tomorrow is difficult to predict; for I will continue thinking about what is thought worthy. What is worth considering is worth saying in another way another day. But it must at all costs be spoken. It's worth thinking about!

Freedom’s essential sway (essence) is not originally attributable to will or merely to the causality of human desiring.
Freedom administers the free, in the sense of the illuminated, i.e. of the revealed. The occurrence of revealing, i.e. of truth, is what freedom is most closely and most intimately related to. All revealing is part and parcel of a sheltering and a concealing. Liberating, however, is concealed and always conceals itself, the secret. All revealing comes from the free, goes into the free, and brings into the free. The freedom of the free consists neither in unbound arbitrariness nor in the bonds of mere laws. Freedom is illuminating concealment in whose illumination that veil flutters which conceals the essential swaying of all truth and which makes that veil appear as one that shrouds. Freedom is the realm of that sending forth which each time sets a revelation on its path.

[-RG transl.]

Das Wesen der Freiheit ist ursprünglich nicht dem Willen oder gar nur der Kausalität des menschlichen Wollens zugeordnet.
Die Freiheit verwaltet das Freie im Sinne des Gelichteten, d.h. des Entborgenen. Das Geschehnis des Entbergens, d. h. der Wahrheit, ist es, zu dem die Freiheit in der nächsten und innigsten Verwandtschaft steht. Alles Entbergen gehört in ein Bergen und Verbergen. Verborgen aber ist und immer sich verbergend das Befreiende, das Geheimnis. Alles Entbergen kommt aus dem Freien, geht ins Freie und bringt ins Freie. Die Freiheit des Freien besteht weder in der Ungebundenheit der Willkür, noch in der Bindung durch bloße Gesetze. Die Freiheit ist das lichtend Verbergende, in dessen Lichtung jener Schleier weht, der das Wesende aller Wahrheit verhüllt und den Schleier als den verhüllenden erscheinen läßt. Die Freiheit ist der Bereich des Geschickes, das jeweils eine Entbergung auf ihren Weg bringt.

[„Die Frage nach der Technik“ in MH GA Bd.7, S.26 bzw. Klett-Cotta-Ausgabe S.24-25]

Necessary Quotation

From Ligne de risque n°23, novembre 2007, p.40, François Meyronnis in answer to a question on language, literature, "loving words":

Celui qui a un mauvais rapport avec le langage a un mauvais rapport avec la vie. Avec un langage misérable, toute possibilité d'affranchissement se retire.

And here, for those who wish to grasp, even if not for the masses, my English and German versions:

Anyone who has a bad relationship with language has a bad relationship with life. With miserable language, all possibility of liberation is withdrawn.

Wer einen schlechten Bezug zur Sprache hat, hat einen schlechten Bezug zum Leben. Mit einer armseligen Sprache zieht sich jede Möglichkeit einer Befreiung zurück.

-----------UPDATE---------

As if leaving a physical commentary to this post, Jennifer surprised the bonkers out of me/us as we just returned from visiting Edith (with freshly shampooed hair and some kind of foam fixer ?? she likes to put on it and ever more rambunctious), with a delivery crammed in our mail box. It contained the wonderful (from first glance) volume ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE by Fonseca & Carolino, which I'm sure will prove even more fantastic upon more thorough perusal. So thanks, Jenn, for commenting on this post - in a proper manner - without even yet having been able to know about it. (Like minds, etc......)

Happy Thanksgiving

... thankful for each human life and its unique and vital link to, implication in, necessity for Being itself, to the EVENT of Being. Enowning each of us as we enown ourselves with Being.

It is a wondrous event to BE.

Consider the depth of the statements I AM ; YOU ARE ; Being IS the necessity for each human.

( And IS, as well as all other forms of "to be" here, are to be taken TRANSITIVELY ! )

What makes each of us human is our ability to speak, not to babble, but to SPEAK, to form the WORD that IS, to consider, to know that death is always approaching us, but that this knowledge is unique, a gift and a responsibility to THINK about what it is to BE.

We are the only creatures capable of thinking of our own death and of our own BEING.

Being relies on us to consider it ; We shouldn't relinquish this responsibility to the calculators and technicians, for they are unable to think Being and allow it to withdraw into darkness.

And Being considered is the site of LOVE. Love IS Being. Being IS Love.

When you love, you are, and you are at once and at the same time another as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

...***...

Added on Thanksgiving Day, something else to be thankful for: a new issue of Ligne de Risque has just been published, n°23, ICI LA PAROLE, with the participation of Valentin Retz, Jean-Jacques Schul, Jean-Claude Milner, Philippe Sollers, Laurent Bevilacqua, François Meyronnis, and Yannick Haenel.

Hölderlin...

This poet speaks hope, truth, being; don't forget, think, go forward, see light.

"Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst

Das Rettende auch."

- Friedrich Hölderlin, Patmos, Dem Landgrafen von Homburg, 1802-03/1805

Mais là où il y a danger, croît

Ce qui sauve aussi.

But where danger is, increases

that which saves as well.

- trad./trans. RG

Άλήθεια

Άλήθεια:

„Das Hereinblicken des Seins in das von ihm selbst und als es selbst gelichtete Offene, offen für das Unverborgene alles Erscheinens.“

…

„Sein, das selbst west als das Freie, in dessen Lichtung das Seiende den Eingang zur Unverborgenheit und aus dieser den Aufgang zum Erscheinen und mit diesem den Fug der Anwesung findet.“

MH: GA Bd.54, S.240

Being peers into the illuminated openness that it itself illuminated and is, open for the unconcealed of all appearing.

...

Being that itself essentially sways as the Free, in whose illumination beings find access to unconcealment and, from that, ascent to appearance and, from this, the joint of swaying temporal existence.

Das Wort

Im Griechentum ist ... das Wort ... dasjenige, worin das Sein sich dem Menschen zuweist, damit er es als das ihm Zugewiesene in seinem eigenen Wesen bewahre und aus solcher Bewahrung seinerseits erst sein eigenes Wesen als Mensch finde und behalte.
[MH, GA Bd.54, §5, S.115]

For the Greeks, the Word is that in which Being allocates itself to Man for him to preserve it in its own Essence as what was allocated to him and, from this preservation, on the other hand, finally to find and maintain his own Essence as Man.

Thanks to Rose ...

Thank you, Rose, for your birthday tomorrow !

Rose Tyson Gardner

August 30, 1926 - April 21, 2007

You filled me with being and your being is here in me.

Slowly pain transforms and eases into thanks to the departed. Those who reach thanks experience the mysterious power of recall which thanks enfolds.

[My English rendition of MH's thoughts in memory of Fridolin Wiplinger in 1974 from vol.13 of the complete works, p. 238, which, in the original, reads as follows:

"Langsam wandelt und mildert der Schmerz sich zum Dank an den Abgeschiedenen. Die ins Danken gelangen, erfahren die geheimnisvolle Kraft der Vergegenwärtigung, die der Dank in sich birgt."]

Reading...

Supporting and guiding what we call reading is the act of gathering, gathering up what has been written and what the text has to say. Reading gathers what has already laid claim to our innermost self without our knowing it, whether we live up to, or betray, that essential core. But without true reading, reading proper, we cannot see what is peering at us nor look at what appears and shines.

[My own colloquial English version of MH's "Was heißt Lesen?" from 1954, included in GA Bd.13]