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Ode to Man
Tho’ many are the terrors,
not one more terrible than man goes.
This one beyond the grizzled sea
in winter storming to the south
He crosses, all-engulfed,
cutting through, up from under swells.
& of the gods She the Eldest, Earth
un-withering, un-toiling, is worn down,
As the Twisting Plough’s year
into Twisting Plough’s year,
Through the breeding of horse, he turns.
& the lighthearted race of birds
all-snaring he drives them
& savage beasts, their clan, & of the sea,
marine in kind
With tightly-wound meshes spun
from all-seeing is Man.
Yet too, he masters by means of pastoral
beast, mountain-trodding,
The unruly-maned horse holding fast,
‘round the neck yoked,
& the mountain’s
ceaseless bull.
& the voice & wind-fast thought
& the passion for civic ways
He has taught, so from crag’s poor court
from under the ether’s hard-tossed arrows
To flee, this all-crossing one. Blocked, he comes
upon nothing so fated.
From Hades alone escape he’ll not bring.
Tho’ from sickness impossible
Flight he has pondered.
A skilled one, devising of arts beyond hope,
Holding at times an evil,
But then to the noble he crawls,
honoring the laws of the Earth, &
Of gods the oath so just,
high-citied.
Citiless is the one who with the un-beautiful
dwells, boldly in grace.
Never for me a hearth-mate
may he have been, never equal in mind
He who offers this.
Ode to Man
A BwO is made in such a way that it can be occupied, populated only by intensities. Only intensities pass and circulate. Still, the BwO is not a scene, a place, or even a support upon which something comes to pass. It has nothing to do with phantasy, there is nothing to interpret. The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them in a spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension. It is not space, nor is it in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree—to the degree corresponding to
the intensities produced. It is nonstratified, unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity, intensity = 0; but there is nothing negative about that zero, there are no negative or opposite intensities. Matter equals energy. Production of the real as an intensive magnitude starting at zero. That is why we treat the BwO as the full egg before the extension of the organism and the organization of the organs, before the formation of the strata; as the intense egg defined by axes and vectors, gradients and thresholds, by dynamic tendencies involving energy transformation and kinematic movements involving group displacement, by migrations: all independent
of accessory forms because the organs appear and function here only as pure intensities. The organ changes when it crosses a threshold, when it
changes gradient. "No organ is constant as regards either function or position, . . . sex organs sprout anywhere,... rectums open, defecate and close, . . . the entire organism changes color and consistency in split-second adjustments." The tantric egg. After all, is not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the BwO?
Ode to Man
But human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes; we have not, therefore, an absolute power of shaping to our use those things which are without us. Nevertheless, we shall bear with an equal mind all that happens to us in contravention to the claims of our own advantage, so long as we are conscious, that we have done our duty, and that the power which we possess is not sufficient to enable us to protect ourselves completely; remembering that we are a part of universal nature, and that we follow her order. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist. For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavour of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole.
Frames /sing 
Godspeed. I’ve immensely enjoyed reading your blog.
bon voyage!
Thanks to you Kevin, and take care 😉 !
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and inspiring new directions of thought. And I wish you the very best for your travels.
take care, i’ve certainly enjoyed visiting and mulling over your posts, which gratefully only lead to more questions. so now i can’t help but turn to your beloved Spinoza for solace: “But perhaps I will treat these matters more clearly with you some other time, if life lasts.” (from his “last reply” to Tschirnhaus, 15 July 1676)
cheers.
ps. here’s a little something i just came across that you might want to read when you’ve finished packing.
I enjoyed our conversations, and I certainly learned some things from them. Thanks for pushing me.
Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. I only discovered your blog a few months ago so I know I will enjoy digging into your older entries for months to come.
K – thanks for the mental stimulus. Your commentaries got me thinking and made me pursue ideas and thoughts I would never have pursued otherwise, I learned a lot.
I look forward to hearing about your journeys in South East Asia. Take a camera.
..Tom
Good Work! Your posts will be missed. I look forward to the next incarnation.
At the risk of sounding hackneyed, I wish you well in all your future endeavors. Hopefully this will not be a permanent parting of ways. Your posts and comments have been immensely beneficial.
From Chiang Mai, Thailand…
Thank you all for your warm wishes and good thoughts. Much valued and remembered.
Here’s another belated “Ping” for best wishes. Maybe some Spinozist Buddhism will ultimately flow?
Musing on Shinzen Young’s suggestion that language alone is so inadequate to philosophy that diametrically opposed propositions can often be “talking about the same thing”! “The Buddhists say enlightenment is to realize there is no Atma, which is interpreted as self-as-thing”. Meanwhile, “Within a lot of Hinduism the very same experience is described as discovering the True Self in a way that implies it’s a thing – the Witness, the True Observer, Pure Consciousness, etc.”
OOPs, maybe this a battle best left behind?
Should you ever pass through Japan, give me a shout (jlm@wordworks.jp). We have a small guest room and futon if you’d like to visit our fair city (Yokohama).
John
Thank you John, very generous of you. I will take you up on that offer if we ever find ourselves Japan bound.
This is sad news, but I’ll try to use it as an opportunity to peruse the back catalogue.
Have a wonderful trip. Hope to see you reappear in the future!
Thanks for everything! You’ve been great to think with. Now Mikhail’s going to have to invent another persona to do all the cool things you did!
I just got everything I could out of “Kevin” – he turned out alright, didn’t he? I’m really proud of this one.
Good luck with everything, Kevin, keep in touch!
Kevin – I’m sorry to hear that the blog will be going dark, but it sounds as if you’re off on a new adventure. I wish you all the best with it. I’ve enjoyed your posts very much, and your comments and conversations on my blog (and others) as well. I look forward to hearing more from you at some point. Be well.
To the uninitiated, it would appear that ruthless unmasking finally did have some effect! Ha.
Anyway, good luck Kevin. I’ve enjoyed conversing.
–Shahar
That’s sad! Just starting to read and enjoy your blog. Reincarnations are where the future lies, though. :o) Good journeys.
Cheers, Kevin. Best of luck in Thailand!
Hey, I enjoyed reading your stuff about Spinoza, Zizek and Massumi.
I’m in Thailand as well — whoring and thinking…
Drop me a mail if you wanna hook up for a philosophical beer in Bangers!
http://www.BigDummyKenny.com
Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words. I can’t say that whoring and/or drinking is much on the menu. Up in the North, where my wife is training (and fighting some) in Muay Thai (the purpose of our trip). Its pretty much 24hrs of training/eat/sleep, repeat.
As always though appreciate the offer.
Hope to hear from you again!