PRAISE oblivion, or of no return
My praise is only a little oblivion, and then, given the theme of the evening, also of no return.
One, after all, is a form of the other and each other, as appropriate.
A tribute dedicated to Nietzsche, for whom "no happiness, no serenity, no hope, no pride, no this could exist without the ability to forget. "
Why re Agreement and re-back can mate to re- feeling be forms of re -feeling , passion and sad how many other nefarious ever.
A eulogy is also a vindication.
They are claiming the right to forget and be forgotten, and therefore not having to go back to where we should be known and recognized, and where we should recognize - recognize What? Who? ... The places and faces that have made our face and have accompanied our life, that the guard, guide, direct and support?
claim the right not to have a source, or forget it and then not even have a destination. A destiny, that yes, not a destination.
claim the right not to have roots, or uprooted. Perhaps this is one of the possible meanings of the famous aphorism of Novalis's argument that the philosophy is a particular form of nostalgia: the desire to feel at home anywhere.
But back to the right to forget . Those who, from the very beginning of our culture, we have provided the words and concepts to think about our experience, they obsessively insisted that true knowledge is memory, recollection, that the imperative is to return to the Father's house, to the homeland lost.
Well, the nightmare and obsession - and damnation, as in a story by Borges - a total memory, which is a kind of death, this is the right to claim amnesia, Which brings us back to the present, the depth this.
E 'pain, always reminds us of Nietzsche, "the carrier was more powerful than the mnemonic".
"" It is something that affects a fire is kept in memory: only that which never ceases to remain in the memory of pain " - This is an axiom of the oldest (unfortunately also the longest running) psychology on earth. "Then it is forgotten, so easily, something very trivial, but by no means a minor: that even what has brought pleasure in the memory can not cause pain, for the simple fact that the pleasure is lost. We invented the melancholy not to be paralyzed by grief , the absence of what gave us pleasure. And without melancholy, perhaps, there would not even art, as you know almost all the artists.
Melancholy is itself a form of semi-oblivion, keep a distance, be ready to take his leave, to be laid off and dismiss what is.
Melancholy oblivion are active forces.
Why "is the oblivion of being adapted to the present, of the mind" - as "sleep is being adapted to the present, of the body." (Valéry)
New distributions of life are possible thanks to the power of oblivion, the disorder of memory, breaking the historical links. "Forgetting, throwing a veil of uncertainty about the movement of time (...) a bad memory rejuvenated." (Augé). It 's a question of power, because to forget is where a thought is overwhelmed by something more powerful
Try to forget, however, is also trying to escape the logic and the requirement of presence , is the need to inhabit the empty time of waiting pure, with nothing to wait, without the project. It 'the expression of a desire for anonymity that most of anonymity. It's not a desire of the subject.
oblivion expects a strange gift, not to be recognized and in return you do not look for a strange sort of freedom, the ability to respond to those who want to re-meet you with the words, these too mentioned, the other boy poet ... I'm not what you recognize. I is an Other.
oblivion also establishes a special relationship with what is forgotten, and thus holds the secret. Forget something, he added, meant to leave in his absence, physical or mental means, in a certain sense, no longer feel the need to have it with the custom of first, the closeness that seemed so important, not because the importance of both failed, but because everything was consumed, it is performed, feel, therefore, that 's abandonment is the best way to preserve the uniqueness of that relationship. In the end he who forgets, squanders, squander. E ', can be a sign of wealth.
I suppose, then, Ulysses decides to stay at Calypso, perhaps because he brought with him some fruit of the lotus - a man is still curious and loves experiment, could not resist the temptation, and now our hero nostos forgot Penelope, because the nymph is very beautiful, loving, and offers him immortality, gifts hard to refuse, or because has a name so sweet and strong, full of promise - means "one who hides ', the concealer , Ulysses and perhaps tempted to disappear, to be truly None or, more simply because he is very tired, browse, search, of question, to understand ... - because "the hour of extreme tiredness there are more philosophical problems." (Handke)
Maybe does not even really miss Penelope, in the banal sense of forgetting. Ulysses still loves his wife, but love can also take the form of oblivion, when, for example, love to forget, continuously remove what can disturb or pollute our passion. Ovid advised unhappy lover of an exercise in memory recall persistently before him all the faults of the beloved, bringing out, so a bit 'at a time, would have forgotten. The happy lover does the opposite: he forgets everything that could decisively away from the beloved, and so, sooner or later, there comes a time when, by continuing to remove ... it is nothing or almost nothing, the object of our desire. As when, in the drawing, you still remain clear that only the right treatment, and this is why we have not deleted along with others and at best it is only a nearly unnoticed, light groove on paper. Then love is perfect, complete, for without reason (without motif), a sheet full of white traces erased.
But Ulysses is perhaps the work at Calypso another form of neglect, resulting from the awareness of the terrible work of linear time. Ulysses knows - who knows how to imagine, after all is the man of knowledge - once to Ithaca, the disappointment will take the place of nostalgia. Sorrow for the distance will replace the dull boring, not so much the custom, and for evidence of an indisputable truth: the return of claims to undo the progress, or at least to neutralize it, so it is a chimera. Do not ever go back. You can say it in another way (as does Jankélévitch), but the meaning does not change: the man who wants to return to his roots where it has never gone back and review what has never seen. It 's a false recognition.
Better, then, cultivate nostalgia, but also so that the memories become only shadows, or something "almost" indifferent, neutral, that is no longer neither good nor bad, in a present leaving only traces of oblivion, as the footprints they leave items when they are removed from a place where there is a lot of dust deposited over time.
Those who start to enjoy the pleasure of return and start to forget those who are deceived them both, although in this deception find their pleasure.
And then there are those who would like to cancel the return itself, retracing their steps, like Ulysses' journey Last Pascoli, which draws on its way back to whether what he has lived in the adventure is real and how much is true. He also meets disappointment because everything has changed, or maybe it was a dream, except that receives Calypso-gathers, died in his arms.
Let me conclude by returning to Nietzsche, Zarathustra's call to "remain faithful to the earth."
This loyalty also involves a willingness to go down, through the love of what sets. Let things sink slowly in the "visible beauty of what was forgotten" (Blanchot), not worn out from work unhappy memories, but consumed and kept from oblivion.
So, perhaps, take on a strange life.
Maybe so, again, that we truly love, but have forgotten.
The quotations are from:
F. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
P. Valéry, Papers, Vol III
M. Augé, The forms of oblivion
P. Handke, Essay on fatigue
V. Jankélévitch, The irreversible and nostalgia
M. Blanchot, Waiting, forgetfulness
