Fragment

"... when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."

~ T. S. Eliot

The act of thinking, which produces thought(s) [there is no such thing as Thought, as an abstract entity] is concerned wholly with the formation of concepts -- and concepts are linguistic structures. In response to the seething morass of sense-impressions, emotions, and general existential turmoil encountered by us on a daily basis, we use language as a means to organize and control this chaos, to stave off madness, and ultimately to create a meaning that is both personal and communicable -- through tropes and various figures -- to the more-or-less attentive world of others.

Focused thus on making sense of the unweeded garden that is the life-world, we find (upon reflection) that we are interpreting our reactions, giving form to something (our emotion-based thoughts) that arose out of chaos. We are therefore creators, not knowers. To know means to see clearly. Surely, by knowing we become ourselves objects. to be analyzed and carefully fitted into some conceptual schema that we formulate, and yet which is somehow other than our creative self. To know myself means to objectify myself, to become other than the one doing the thinking ... This begs the question, of course: Is this even possible? My act of thinking is bound to my experience, the here-and-now.

"Life piled on life

Were all to little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things"

~ Tennyson, "Ulysses"

I cannot objectify myself. I cannot rest from ego trips. The name that I am become is a trope for all that is essential to life. A "power greater than myself"? No such thing. For others are capable of producing context, restraint, laws, the envy of accomplishment that drives the flower, etc. ... But only I am capable of providing the atmosphere that renders all this hule aesthetically pleasing. To whom? To myself. The only judge that matters.

Comfort in the form of a legislator independent of my thinking self is an illusion of salvation. Healthy people seek to be saved from themselves. Such are human beings, normal and part of a world that has evolved along more or less life-affirming lines. Exceptional people seek not to be saved, but rather to transform their personal atmosphere into an ideal realm into which to retire, at will, for the sake of prosperity in the only life worth living.