The Dynamics of Interruption, Part I

Before I turn into Yusef’s caricature of me as the Beach Boy of Philosophy, happily surfing the waves of continuous creation and ”refusing to pause for anything”, let me celebrate interruption, the still waters of correcting the course, and the opportunity to search for the next ”Surfin’ Safari”:)

It is only fitting in this Darwinean year that we take a look at Henri Bergson’s concept of Creative Evolution = the idea that evolution is motivated by an élan vital, a "vital impetus" that can also be understood as humanity's natural creative impulse.

This also ties in with his idea of ”Durée” = duration which refers to a more individual, subjective experience of time, as opposed to mathematical, objectively measurable "clock time". This experience of time as "duration" can best be understood through creative intuition, not through intellect.

The question of ”life” or ”the continuous surge of creation, the vibrating intensities of existence, the chaosmos of living and thinking, the plasma of perpetual becomings" is playing out on a microcosmic , biological, atomistic level whereas we can ”pretend” on a macrocosmic ”niveau” to pause, to ”reactivate” - to ”stop”, in fact, the continuity of life.

But let’s play pretend. Let’s pause. And intuitively say that we can temporarily locate a blank space to ponder.

There is a perfectly understandable urge to ”examine a life (or a thought)” as Socrates reminded us of the value of. And this is a unique interregnum that can produce change and creation.

So when we are ”taking a break” to think, are we then also imposing a stop to a ” duration” that is a purely individual and intuitive. Can it be credible when we know we cannot ”stop” to think?

And yet there is a curious sense of well-being when we savour a moment to reflect, when we sit down and look back, arrange our thoughts, and (maybe) arrive at some sort of clarification and perhaps even a direction to go in. We have a feeling (that might even be psychosomatic) that now we KNOW how to proceed. It may be (and probably is) purely illusionary, but it seems ”real”.

A case could be made that this is indeed what philosophy is all about: The attempt to arrest creative evolution by denying it. Philosophy as the celebration of the dynamics of the interruption of LIFE.