Fog
Sunday morning I find myself “deep in the weeds” reading chapter X of What Is Called Thinking? by Martin Heidegger. I have one more chapter to go. I am determined to finish the book because the partial reading (half way) that was recommended is a certain finish short of the view which Heidegger has in mind for the reader. Why would anyone do such meticulous word-cultivation if less would have been enough? So today I struggle to remember the single semester of Greek grammar from my college days as I wrap my mind around Heidegger’s description of how beings participate in Being and vice versa. Heidegger writes: this is the meaning of the participle form of speech, the “ing” suffix which marks so many hybrid noun-verbal forms. How strange, morphing and dynamic, a suggestion that “the real” is by no means as stable, as fixed as we’d prefer.
I finished chapter X relieved to close the book. Then I picked up a monograph essay by Christine Abigail L Tan. Tan is a lecturer at the National University of Singapore. She contrasts the meritocracy of Confucianism with the dynamic, improvisational view of Zhuangzi. Confucius lived about 500 BCE, and Zhuangzi from about 369 BCE – sometimes referred to as the warring states period.
Human existence is often a matter of doing the best as one can in given circumstances.
Heidegger and Tan.
I finished the seven page essay by Tan. I anticipate being present for a zoom discussion for each of these works, the story telling of two ancient Chinese virtuosos of language, the other from the World War II years. Each seems to comment on much the same options for parsing experience, for constructing one’s singular life. The first zoom session is scheduled for this afternoon at 2PM. The second is to be Tuesday evening at 6PM.
The image of fog blanketing the pond behind Starbucks. The traffic on Randall Road is obscured. The fog improves morning’s view.
