An evening of poetry reading…
And as the poet said “a performance”, spiced up by jokes in prose and sarcasm…
The performance of the poetry … of the poet … of the poet’ self … of the audience’s self … of whose self … what self … which self … of that self whose self is which self ….
The philosophy of self irked … not really … but inspired … by the post-modern incredulity to meta-narratives.
But why Self?
Well, Kierkegaard said that self is dvvxGBCJ>HCHCJBCzkgcvUSKFGBNCHGAuf ….
Yes, that makes real sense … so deep … so intricate …. every letter so complex …
So whose Self are we talking about?
Is it the Poet’s self, or the Self’s poet?
No it is the poet’s consciousness!
What is consciousness?
Well, it is something similar to what Kierkegaard said about the self.
We have polemics, binaries, huge nouns, and then a discourse that touches nothing, but touches everything!
Language is all about talking and making meanings, where even none exist!
Words make meanings in minds. Mind makes words.
What is superficial and apparent and needs no deep thinking transforms to networked complexity. The complexity that emerges, or rather made from superficiality.
The power of words! The power of mind! The power of self! The power of the reader!
But is that truly the Self? The Self that which is verbally engaged with by the artist’s self, the poet’s self? Is it the “I” that never goes away even with poetry that defies the self.
I, Me, and Mine …. Wherein is the Self in these?
Lost in words, lost in meanings created by complexity made of superficialities…
Once upon a time, a few years before Kierkegaard, the Upanishadic thinker – The one with far-farsightedness (Kavi) said: Self-enquiry is like walking on the razor’s edge!
But that Self is not the “I, Me and Mine”. Not the Self that emerges from the assemblage of words like “consciousness”, “identity” … but a deeper space which is bereft of the superficiality that is burdened by the complex network of shallow life and living.
And that is the Self which is not explored, for that Self can never be found and its coordinates marked.
Then what is that which is talked about? Whose Self?
The Self that which is not really engaged with… but the Self which meanders and takes one where he walks to….Self that is made, designed, customised and made to exist as per one’s taste and travails?
Then isn’t that the process … the other side of meta-narratives and unchanging firmaments?
Not at all … that is just doing what one wants without the categorical imperative of Kant.
Process is moving, and moving beyond … yet dharma sustaining … all the way … through the way …
About Consciousness 