What does it take

to become human, to bridge the gap between…

zoe and bios, physiology and biography, nature and spirit,

the somatic and symbolic?

For us life is meaning and meaning is life.

—Inner Experience and Worldly Revolt; Arendt’s Bearing on Kristeva’s Project

by Noëlle McAfee, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy

The morning sky scrubbed clean, appeared uninterrupted blue, and the sun was suspended above the river’s edge treeline as a giant blinding ball of fire.  My mind has been much on Julia Kristeva’s writing.  She posits that birth, the arrival of the new, the entrance of the unprecedented event is the essence, the nexus of what it means to be a human being.  That seems right to me.  Is the assertion, the position amenable to proof in the strict sense?  Without proof, is there enough evidence, sufficient clues hiding in plain sight to satisfy my skepticism?   Yes.

Viewing this sunrise and remembering the many sunrises that I have witnessed reminds me that renewal, the promise of life-giving light after hours of quiescence and sleep is a persistent reminder of Kristeva’s thesis.  I remember the sunrise above the horizon of the Atlantic ocean, while on a surfboard feeling the rise and fall of the swells moving toward the shoreline.  Swells were like the heartbeat of the planet.  That was many years ago when I was much younger.  The earth seemed alive.

And there is the role of the mother, the mother’s special function as the passage from a raw desiring organism, a shuttlecock between hunger and satiation, between somatic discomfort to a clean diaper along with a gentle hug… There’s the enormous role of maternal care, the contribution of which allows the nascent human, to begin-to-be a speaking being…  The evocation, the conjuring of the new, the individuality of a human being is labor.

For us, the tribe of humanity, openness to the new, expectation of the natality of the world is our lifeline.

This is so in every endeavor by which we describe our life together: social convention, politics, economics, international relations, etc.

The alternative is stasis, morbidity.

---

This tune will be a strong tether to get us through this day.  Dreams composed by Stevie Nicks.  This is a tale of a failing relationship.  When we refuse the new, deny the uncharted and the unknown, the dreams up for sale are just dreams of loneliness.

Dreams

By Fleetwood Mac

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well, who am I to keep you down?
It’s only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness

Like a heartbeat… drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost…
And what you had…
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Say… Women… they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean… you’ll know, you’ll know

Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself
It’s only me
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and…
Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness…

Like a heartbeat… drives you mad…
In the stillness of remembering what you had…
And what you lost…
And what you had…
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know

Oh, thunder only happens when it’s raining
Players only love you when they’re playing
Say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll know
You will know, you’ll know

Lyrics by Stevie Nicks