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I mentioned a book which I finished reading. The author caught me with a too abrupt ending. I wanted more. No doubt, the writer gave what he had to say, without attempting to gin-up a speculative conclusion. That was ideal, and how much courage does that require? That is – strength to be silent when one is finished?

We are engulfed in a maelstrom, a blizzard of BS, – advertising pitches, pundits and zealots of every type shilling for their cause. For some the confusion this storm of opinion causes, is precisely their intent. “This” is the time in which we live.

I decided to circle back into the next to last chapter in the The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism to review what was written about the work of Martin Heidegger. Many years ago I purchased a copy of Heidegger’s Being and Time. I attempted, more than once, to read the tome, but finally admitted defeat. I donated the book. However years have passed and the ideas Heidegger pondered begin to make sense to me.

What has happened, here I am, – “this sort” of being? Is it possible to understand immediately without “grasping conceptually?” And that hidden meaning…

We say things like:
here is something (a thing that is) rectangular;
it is a desk;
it is in this room;
and so forth.

We already understand the “is.”
or rather, understanding immediately takes place.
The meaning of the “is” is not grasped conceptually;
somehow it is understood and yet
its meaning remains hidden.

Without this kind of immediate understanding
we would not be able
to exist in the world of “beings.”

We ourselves are also
“beings” who exist in the world
amidst various other beings,
but we differ
from everything else in that
we are beings who
have an understanding of being of things
and of ourselves
as “beings” in their midst.

… this accounts for
our way of being in the world.

The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism by Nishitani Keiji, trans. by Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, page 159

Music, music, music is our ritual of being! For today, If You Leave by Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark.