... But from this it follows that the words most charged with philosophy are not necessarily those that contain what they say, but rather those that most energetically open upon Being, because they more closely convey the life of the whole and make our habitual evidences vibrate until they disjoin. (The Visible and the Invisible, p. 102)
Seriously, that's hot. I love it when philosophy happens in a conference or a classroom. It's unfortunately rare, because I think a great deal of what happens in conferences and classrooms has already been tamed, domesticated, penned up (now, see, that's a nice pun right there). I always want to just go into a room and think, right there in front of everybody, hopefully with most everybody - because you can't really do it alone.
When it happens, we're opened up to the world, to words, to meaning, to Being as Merleau-Ponty says, and to one another. Either because it takes so much energy and adrenalin to get there, or because getting there releases so much energy and adrenalin, there's a rush. Something is emerging, an understanding is being conceived (another good pun). Hence the joy, as well.
Reading The Visible and the Invisible is bringing me back this feeling (when it's not annoying the heck out of me), that the past couple years of dread have dampened. I hope I can keep that going as the Fall term approaches, remember what it felt like in class sessions of a couple years ago - especially in the Theory of Knowledge class, when we had days we reached a point that all we could do was laugh, just burst out in laughter. Damn, that's wonderful.
Is that what it felt like to be a rock star?
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