Sip, drag, sip, drag, slurp, puff, sip, and so on. What a pair. Smoke, steam, robust, smooth.
Symbiosis. Synergy. Making people feel at ease, as they rush a little bit further towards death.
Acceleration. Stimulation. Progress. It's the way of the future, it's the way of the past.
So how's that different from this?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MorDCtBPR8
Accelerate your life... As a friend and neighbor of mine once commented to me, doesn't that just mean die faster? Accelerate your automobile--watch that odometer tick, tick, tick, up, up, up; one day that car won't work anymore. The faster you go, the sooner you'll stop. Life seems dependent on speed, pace.
What is this desire for acceleration? What is this desire for instantaneousness? Need we accelerate faster and faster when the ends are always inevitably the same? Life has its ups, it has its downs. It's all part of the system.
One method of analysis I learned in Parasites class:
Systems: Sy-stem. Etymology:
--From http://www.etymonline.com
"Syn-" means together, likewise that's where "sym-" comes from. Sy-stem, a group of related programs. Sym-biosis, life, together. Biosis, Stem; life, program. These are two ideas that are undoubtedly intertwined. Is to be educated in the Navy not the same (same: also stemming from "sym-", or moreover the Germanic "sem-") as to submit one's self into a program? Is it not also considered an endeavor which society would claim to be a "life-choice;" a decision regarding the way of living one's life? Is it not the formation of a symbiotic relationship with the Navy organization, and a "sim-"ultaneous integration into a system?
It's all happening together. To drink coffee and smoke cigarettes is simply to enter another system of stimulation, another way to accelerate one's life. In this sense, to be a Navy Seal is to be a beatnik, a poet, an artist, or any other occupation which might entail the occasional coffee-smoke.
What separates them? Social identity, of course, but society separates everything. The artist, the soldier, both paths of life. Both parasites in the human world. The soldier is trained, he is shaped into a follower of orders, one who will fight and obey commands for a benefit that he deems reasonable. The artist is trained as well, not to fight, but to analyze--to attempt to convey certain old ideas in forms that have not been used, or perhaps new ideas in recognizable forms. One might suggest the soldier is a destroyer, the artist a creator. But once again, to destroy is to cause an end--to create is to cause beginning. Both are causal, and both are inevitable. Being only exists with its counterpart, non-being, and vice-versa.
Serres would suggest this as being only two sides of a triangle. He would close that triangle with a third side. What is this third side? What is is that links the ideas of symbiosis and systematics? He'd probably draw this out something like this:
Heidegger would call the third side, on a triangle concerning "being" and "non-being," "becoming." Just the same, Serres would suggest a similar cooperation between the two corners bordering the "third side." I'll call it "Stembiosis."
So it's full circle, or full-triangle. Triangles are stronger than circles anyway, and everything's made up of triangles--or at least anything can be broken down geometrically into triangles (I guess except a circle, but then we have to discuss infinity more, which is basically what I'm getting to anyway).
This is causing me to think a lot about the way the world works. Yes, parasited as we are, constantly interrupted, I can't help but go about my daily business in a manner of A, B, C, systematic planning. But I particularly enjoy this idea of equivalence that Serres puts throughout his "The Parasite."
Quite often, it seems unreasonable to think about the world in terms of its infinite, full-circle, parasitic relations. It may hinder common thought, and retard one's ability to live life "to the fullest," to quote everybody. To think of life as a circle seems like giving up; to assume the end is the same as the beginning, and to then fill in the third side (which I would suppose is the life-process itself) as an equivalent of both others is to suggest that nothing matters more than the moment of birth (or conception if you see it in such a way), or the very moment of death, or than any given moment during life--and all the same, nothing matters less. This causes my daily routine, which might entail a cup of coffee and a cigarette in the morning--or maybe registration for the Navy in the afternoon--to seem void of any sort of importance, considering it's just as important as, say, brushing one's teeth, or perhaps giving Freud's "first gift." It might seem to take away the thrill of shouting "hotbox!" in the event of achieving a game-winning scoredown, and then again, it might add certain positive intrigue, or perhaps excitement to the event of something banal like paying bills. "It's all relative," says everybody, "Just live life to the fullest."
But just when I thought my concept of infinity and inter-relativity regarding systems and symbiosis was coming to a stalemate, I am benefitted by music. Ah, music. Upon re-reading the first chapter of The Parasite, I am glad to have noticed in greater detail the idea presented by Leibniz, the idea of the seventh chord. No--infinity is not harmonious. Not everything is equivalent in importance. The first gift is not the same as a scoredown. And no, it's not all just relative. It's all interrupted. The seventh chord never rests--it resolves. It resolves to the fourth of whatever chord the seventh is placed in. The I-vii becomes the IV, C7 becomes F major. There is tension. There IS resolution. There is an end, there is a beginning, and yes there is the in-between. And yes, they're all related on a triangle, or a circle, or whatever shape you want. But it's all going to be interrupted, and that just means that as relative as things might seem, they only get more relative. Yes, relativity is relative. Coffee and cigarettes go together well, the Navy is a good choice for some people, but regardless of systems--regardless of symbiosis, things are different. And because things are different, things interrupt eachother. And because things interrupt each other, you and I can enjoy certain things in general. That's what's important. We know there's a beginning--we know there's an end--we KNOW THERE IS A MIDDLE, but we can DO IT ALL! And we can have a damned fine time all the while.
Tension gets resolved, Mr. Fox wins in the end, hotbox.
Amen.
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