Instances of Reactivation, Part I

I note a symmetry and synonymy between these two formulas: “Enlightenment is the overcoming of Totalization through critique,” and “Enlightenment is the reactivation of a philosophical ethos.” The juice I wish to get out of this is that I am willing to assume Totalization is overcome through a reactivation of a philosophical ethos. This is all well and good, but very little is learned because I don’t yet have a non-metaphorical understanding of reactivation, which means I don’t have any effective idea of a way to overcome Totalization.

What I want to do over the next several dozen posts is to look at a variety of cases which in one way or another are examples of reactivation. I want to take each example in turn, weigh it, and then extract from it what I think I can use to get the specific mechanisms I believe will be useful for the creation of the kind of reactivation I want—the reactivation of a philosophical ethos. Then, I am going to put that reactivation together, plug it in, and play it—in my head.

I am arbitrary as to which example I will use as my starting point ( I was going to use some examples from science to begin this,) but as Orla has offered a number of hypothetical examples of Totalization and what doesn’t work as reactivation, I have decided to examine these cases first.

“But this is counter-intuitive to the continuous surge of life, to the vibrating intensities of existence, to the chaosmos of living and thinking, to the plasma of perpetual becomings.

When Yusef is battling the concepts of totality and rationality he is trying to stop, isolate, and freeze the flow of emerging streams of creativity. This is understandable and true of all of us in our attempts to create patterns and stable entities. We also know that this desire is rarely qualitative, multidimensional, and inclusive.” – June 7, 2008

Reactivation is a false problem for the reason that life is a continuous surging. A continuous surging is obviously uninterrupted and, suffering no deactivation, requires no reactivation. One way or the other, activation is always happening. If we were so inclined we could take it for granted, happily surfing from one wave of it to the next, up onto the sand wave of the beach, and on to the bar wave of the nearest cocina, where we would surf the waves of a delicious margarita, never pausing in the delight of continuous surging, unless perchance in misfortune we intentionally had a thought which of itself erected a barrier for further surfing. Thought, critique or pause is the absolute enemy.

Therefore: as long as we avoid thought, critique or pause, we cannot need to trouble ourselves with reactivation for whatever purpose or by whatever means. If we should, in our surfing, strike against the shoals or reeves of thought, critique, or pause, (how could we in the first place, as thought, critique, and pause, don’t even exist) life will see us stranded, damaged, there, and hasten to extend its salve of continuous surging to rescue us, (at least from what is not continuously surging, such as pause, hesitation, and nerdy critique.)

Perhaps we can say, following Orla, “Enlightenment is the overcoming of totality through the refusal to pause for anything,” or “Enlightenment is the reactivation of a philosophical ethos through eschewing Enlightenment, reactivation, philosophy, and ethos.”