attempts to base a pattern of thought, or a linguistic
practice, on some independent foundation in reality, is impossible. Any system is
impossible. If these systems “need any justification, it must lie within them, because
there are no independent points of support outside them. That kind of objectivism
is an illusion, produced, no doubt, by the reassuring character of explanation, which
is that any support that is needed comes from the center, man himself.” 57
But the center has dissolved. Man is dead: the great explainer, the great explanation.
He has lost the center: he was the center, the whole in which he was contained. There
can be no more explanations, no more worlds.
There is no center, no source. You can’t explain what isn’t there. Metaphysical I,
nonphysical I: it’s “the fault of pronouns, there is no name for me, no pronoun for
me, all the trouble comes from that.” 58
No center, no source, no whole, no one: and now no me. What in the world do you do?
“It’s a lot to expect of one creature that he should first behave as if he were not,
then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is
not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions.” 59
The physical world is no longer real. That rational, reasoned, objective world of
classical science and humanistic thought is now positively mystical and occult. “Combat
all rationalist dogmas that stand in the way of a metaphysical universe.” 60 Man is dead. Metaphysical I instead. Not reality, but realization. Dismiss yourself.
Let go: there’s nothing lost.
This is the age of unimportance. Reject world. Reject external reality: reject internal
reality. Say no to yourself, to your great truths, to your great men, to your great
books.
Not revelations of belief, not the Capital Letters: Truth, God, Freedom, Justice,
Will . . . but the precious portents of our own powers: the limits of my language
mean the limits of my world. Finite man: he “made a personal matter of what had before
his time been treated in dogmatic form, dominated by tradition. He had no use for
anything except evidence or observation scrupulously verified. What this amounted
to was a refusal to attach to language any value derived merely from people or books
. . . his self tipped the balance.” 61
No more great men, no more great books: his self tipped the balance. His realization
was the balance: is the balance. But in a finite world, even the self is denied, reduced
to an object. No more great men, no more great books . . . no more importance. Deny
your “own validity . . . Surrender to the flux, to the drift towards a new and unthinkable
order.” 62 “Uproot yourself. Uproot yourself, socially and vegetatively. Exile yourself from
every earthly country.” 63
No: negation is the only way, there is no way. The universe must be created out of
all, not created from nothing. Created by negation for creating or not creating changes
nothing. Changes nothing because all created things are unreal: are nothing. Negation
is the only way: no.
Finite man: he says no to everything in order to get at himself. Yet he’s not alive,
he’s not himself. He lives in his image: the unreal.
What is: is other things. Man is dead. He lives in his image: the unreal. “How can
anyone be what one is? No sooner does the question occur to us than it takes us out
of ourselves, and at once we see how impossible we are. Immediately we are astonished
at being someone, at the absurdity of every individual fact of existence, at the curious
effect of seeing our acts beliefs and persons duplicated; everything human is too
human—an oddity, a delusion, a reflex, a nonsense. The system of conventions becomes
comic, sinister, unbearable to think of, almost unbelievable! Laws, religion, customs,
clothes, beliefs . . . all
practice, on some independent foundation in reality, is impossible. Any system is
impossible. If these systems “need any justification, it must lie within them, because
there are no independent points of support outside them. That kind of objectivism
is an illusion, produced, no doubt, by the reassuring character of explanation, which
is that any support that is needed comes from the center, man himself.” 57
But the center has dissolved. Man is dead: the great explainer, the great explanation.
He has lost the center: he was the center, the whole in which he was contained. There
can be no more explanations, no more worlds.
There is no center, no source. You can’t explain what isn’t there. Metaphysical I,
nonphysical I: it’s “the fault of pronouns, there is no name for me, no pronoun for
me, all the trouble comes from that.” 58
No center, no source, no whole, no one: and now no me. What in the world do you do?
“It’s a lot to expect of one creature that he should first behave as if he were not,
then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is
not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions.” 59
The physical world is no longer real. That rational, reasoned, objective world of
classical science and humanistic thought is now positively mystical and occult. “Combat
all rationalist dogmas that stand in the way of a metaphysical universe.” 60 Man is dead. Metaphysical I instead. Not reality, but realization. Dismiss yourself.
Let go: there’s nothing lost.
This is the age of unimportance. Reject world. Reject external reality: reject internal
reality. Say no to yourself, to your great truths, to your great men, to your great
books.
Not revelations of belief, not the Capital Letters: Truth, God, Freedom, Justice,
Will . . . but the precious portents of our own powers: the limits of my language
mean the limits of my world. Finite man: he “made a personal matter of what had before
his time been treated in dogmatic form, dominated by tradition. He had no use for
anything except evidence or observation scrupulously verified. What this amounted
to was a refusal to attach to language any value derived merely from people or books
. . . his self tipped the balance.” 61
No more great men, no more great books: his self tipped the balance. His realization
was the balance: is the balance. But in a finite world, even the self is denied, reduced
to an object. No more great men, no more great books . . . no more importance. Deny
your “own validity . . . Surrender to the flux, to the drift towards a new and unthinkable
order.” 62 “Uproot yourself. Uproot yourself, socially and vegetatively. Exile yourself from
every earthly country.” 63
No: negation is the only way, there is no way. The universe must be created out of
all, not created from nothing. Created by negation for creating or not creating changes
nothing. Changes nothing because all created things are unreal: are nothing. Negation
is the only way: no.
Finite man: he says no to everything in order to get at himself. Yet he’s not alive,
he’s not himself. He lives in his image: the unreal.
What is: is other things. Man is dead. He lives in his image: the unreal. “How can
anyone be what one is? No sooner does the question occur to us than it takes us out
of ourselves, and at once we see how impossible we are. Immediately we are astonished
at being someone, at the absurdity of every individual fact of existence, at the curious
effect of seeing our acts beliefs and persons duplicated; everything human is too
human—an oddity, a delusion, a reflex, a nonsense. The system of conventions becomes
comic, sinister, unbearable to think of, almost unbelievable! Laws, religion, customs,
clothes, beliefs . . . all
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