Fragmentary Notes §31—§41
The following collection of fragments were written many years ago (They are not in any particular definitive order). Their style, terminology, and subject-matter jars with my present work and way of thinking. Despite the fact that I now find them to be unsatisfactory (and, in some cases, downright erroneous), I can’t help but feel that there lies a kernel of truth buried within some of them. Apart from making a few grammatical corrections, I have left them as they were initially written.
§32
What is a System? A System is a tool crafted by Mind for the interpretation and comprehension of itself and its world. A System takes many forms—all of which are dependent on the Mind’s own reflectiveness. A System provides Mind the foundation and substance for its own life and purpose.
§33
A System is a labyrinthine plane which consolidates Mind into a fixed, yet flexible, network of ordered paths. Upon its entry into the labyrinth, an Object gets dragged through a mechanized assembly line of manipulation, distortion, and eventually complete conformity. The System enslaves the Mind and its Object; indeed, the System ossifies Mind for the sake of the System’s own survival and sustenance. The System, begotten by Mind, repays its creator by enslaving him—Mind’s possibilities become limited, and its agency negated.
§34
Mind’s development is not a seamless journey. Quite the contrary, Mind’s progression is often thwarted by incomplete systems that entrap and imprison its own self-realization. In response to its entrapment, Mind redirects its inertia and alters its trajectory—only to be caught once more in (i) gravitational forces that bend Mind back upon itself and into the core of its own being, and (ii) tides that propel Mind into the vast regions of ignorance and possibility.
§35
This leads us to the concept of Mind-in-Flight: the process whereby Mind comes to reject its own System. This process is set in motion upon Mind’s encountering an immutable or insurmountable object, perspective, or idea that cannot to be assimilated and harmonized by said System. The System may pull through and withstand the assailing daggers; however, it does not emerge without battle scars. Its recovery begins to amass contradictions—shards of doubt embed themselves within the System’s core. The vestiges of the initial onslaught have extruded a fatal poison into the heart of the System. The System’s collapse is inevitable. After coming to terms with the dire situation at hand, Mind uproots itself—severing the connections that bounded it to the dying System, jettisoning its withering remains into past. Eventually, that fading shadow of how Mind once was—its former home and place of rest and satisfaction—will disintegrate into nothingness. Mind is unable to return to its shell after casting it off—there is no going back.
Until Mind adopts a new home for itself—another System—it is carried through a sea of novelties and exoticism by the ropes of its own intentionality—swinging from thought to thought, idea to idea. Eventually, the scaffolding of a new System begins to metastasize and acquire mass and form. Mind extracts and absorbs particular elements from the encroaching ideas—features which it considers to be apt for the construction of its new home.
Like the formation of planets, decontextualized ideas drift towards the Mind’s immaterial core. Unwanted and discrepant ideas are ejected back into the void, while others are drawn closer towards a central point until they collide and fuse into a mass of Meaning. The gravitational forces exerted by the ideas themselves alter the motion of surrounding ideas, dragging and tearing elements from each.
Over time, Mind’s new System transitions from embryo to actuality—unfolding itself into manifold paths of possibility and discovery.
Mind’s recognition of its own eternal dialectic is the moment at which Mind elevates itself into a higher form of consciousness—a new frame of reference from which Mind obtains a new vantage-point over itself and its world. This realization allows for Mind to burst from its confining linear, geometrical, and rigid designs—Systems that alienate Mind from itself. Indeed, once Mind becomes conscious of itself as riding its own pulsating current of Thought, Mind unlocks a new species of freedom: He may either continue searching for Systems wherein the form and matter are impenetrable, immovable, and dormant—hostile to itself and its own change; or, Mind can accept itself as pure act—a creative, dynamic process that pours itself out within a regal frame and showers the canvas with a swirling pallet of conscious color: Only the frame is fixed on the wall of actuality; by contrast, the symphony of color presented on the canvas is one that shall forever remain anew, everchanging, and returning upon itself.
Mind’s current flows out-of-itself and back into-itself, absorbing novel Thoughts and Objects, recognizing its faults, and ever-emerging as a process of greater and greater enrichment. This is the sole design wherein the Mind has the opportunity to be acquainted with ataraxia. This particular shape through which Mind realizes itself will always be that of a restless tide, a mighty current. Mind must realize itself that it is its own “becoming” and accept that as its “being.”
This conclusion is a both a blessing and a curse to the reflective Mind. Indeed, Mind must come to terms with a life of perpetual motion, and that his Thought and his World will never be granted with either rest or tranquility.
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