For Aletheia, For Oneiros. Against Comus, Against Erebus.
(Part i of ii)
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On rejecting pushes and pulls, and attuning to the Aletheia of the self. Against the clutter, against the minimalism, against the modification and tailoring of our self!
Lately, I have been thinking about authenticity. About how and where to find authenticity in spite of flashing passionate seductive external influences, but also how and where to find authenticity in spite of reactionary revolutionary rejection.
We sometimes seek to define ourselves by adding names, slogans, taglines, titles, ideals, philosophies. We brand ourselves in the name of what we think we believe in, agree with, and obey, and we parade ourselves with flourishes, and labels, pretty sticky stuff and nonsense. We pile heavy upon our backs what we think we need to appear an exaggerated way of who we think we are, really. Sometimes we do it LOUDLY so no one cannot see or hear!
Or sometimes we go about the other way. We take off all our layers, seeking to strip ourselves to the very core. We cast off out attachments and sentiments, seeking to unburden ourselves by repetitive negation and sheer rejection.
But I’m not sure either way really does all that much good in finding true authenticity.
Sometimes, on the way to find alignment with our authentic self, we might walk a very thin line, a very tight path. Sometimes we are committing a great feat of a balancing act. We can be found being tugged upon by two poles, and we often trip, falling now to one side, and now the other. We can be in the middle of a quixotic tug of war.
To not (fully) become engulfed in the passions and forget the self. To not (completely) tear off all those layers in rejection. To…what then? What is there left to be done?
For the sake of an idea, listen to this story that I have been told:
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Once upon a time, there was a town. This town had rules and laws. Some believed in these rules and laws, and some didn’t. There grew three types of subjects within this town.
One type of subject was called the Good Subject. A second type of subject was called the Bad Subject. And a third type of subject was called the Non-Subject.
Here are their traits.
The Good Subject saw fit to obey the rules and laws of the town. They believed in the structure and order and laws and ways bestowed upon them by the authority of the town (or perhaps they were afraid), and so believing they blindly followed all the rules that they could. The Good Subject is the obedient wage-earner, the systemic capitalist, the loving developer of the town.
That was the Good Subject.
The Bad Subject saw where these rules and laws were flawed. In response to these flaws, the Bad Subject rebelled. The Bad Subject rejected the rules and laws and orders and ways, and fought loudly against them. The Bad Subject is the revolutionary, the rebel, the reactionary. They argue against these rules, and tear them off.
That was the Bad Subject.
But in each case, the written and unwritten ways and rules of the world define these two different subjects and their two different methods of engaging with the world.
Both the Good Subject and the Bad Subject can be identified and defined in relation to the rules and orders, the status quo, the authoritarian ways of the town. The Good Subject needs these rules to obey them and be the Good Subject. But the Bad Subject also needs these rules to reject them and be the Bad Subject.
And then what happens?
The Good Subject and the Authority of the Town saw the Bad Subject and did not like the ways of the Bad Subject, either. The Good Subject and the Authority of the Town fought against the Bad Subject with tighter rules, crueler ways, and stricter laws.
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But then what of that third subject, the Non-Subject?
The Non-Subject saw the flaws of the rules in the ways that the Bad Subject also saw.
But do you know what the Non-Subject did?
Instead of fighting loudly against the rules and laws, the Non-Subject acted as if those flawed and folly laws were not there, and in so doing, lived the Good Life. It is only when the Non-Subject meets resistance to the way in which they would conduct the Good Life does the Non-Subject rise up to fight and fight hard for that Good Life.
This is what the Non-Subject believed: that to constantly fight loudly and to rebel widely against law and rule and authoritarian ways is to give those ways and laws and rules even more power.
To challenge the laws, the subject first has to acknowledge the legitimacy of the law, the power the law has.
The Non-Subject does not acknowledge any legitimacy of the flawed and folly laws. The Non-Subject lives their life as if those laws and rules were not in place.
To not acknowledge the rules, to not even speak their names is to delegitimize, and to begin to undo and unmake their power. (If speech is a spell, then so too is un-speech.)
But to not define the self in terms of the town, the subject must create a new and wholly different way of living both within and without the Town.
It is in this that I think we can begin to see the true importance of Imagination.
xoxo
<3 clare
P.S. The ideas I've been mulling over in this newsletter are one of two parts, so this piece is a two part piece. It isn't finished! This isn't the end! Stay tuned next new moon for part ii!
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