Dies ist der vierte und vorläufig letzte Teil eines Essays zur augenblicklichen Stellung der Lyrik innerhalb des gesellschaftlichen Geschehens. Zwar wird auch in diesem Teil keine befriedigende Antwort gefunden, aber es geht ja auch – schließlich ist dies ein Essay! – um die Untersuchung einer Frage, nicht um das Finden einer Antwort.

Links: Teil 1, Teil 2, Teil 3

Allerdings hat mich die Beschäftigung mit diesen Prozessen – Ausweichen war so und so nicht möglich – dahin geführt, mich an die Arbeit zu einem kleinen Büchlein zu begeben, das vermutlich

heißen wird. Darin wird das Dasein mit und an Worten ausführlicher dargestellt und versucht eine aktuelle Replik auf diverse Briefe zu formulieren (gemeint sind Hofmannsthals Chandos-Brief, Schillers Briefe zur ästhetischen Erziehung und Rilkes Briefe an einen jungen Dichter) sowie die Tradition der Poetiken in die Gegenwart weiterzuführen. Die ersten vorformulierten Abschnitte lassen auf eine einfache, unprätentiöse Sprache hoffen. Wann ein Projekt dieser Größenordnung – neben den alltäglichen beruflichen Anforderungen – zum Abschluss gelangen könnte, läßt sich naturgemäß noch nicht absehen.

Inspiration ist nicht wirklich gefragt. Wer will schon zugeben, dass er oder sie “besessen” sei? Interessanter – und für schadenfrohe Menschenwesen in einem hämischen Gesellschaftsklima auch lustiger – ist es, Besessenheit bei anderen anzusehen. Dabei ist unsere Gesellschaft von vielen Daimonen getrieben: Aktualität (verbunden mit einer ausgeprägten Vergessenskultur), Freiheitskult (verbunden mit panikbesetztem Bindungsverlust), irrationalen Ängsten (verbunden mit einer ausufernden Konsumkultur) und ausgeprägtem Materialismus (verbunden mit seelischer Orientierungslosigkeit) – um nur einige der vertrauteren Dämonen beim Namen zu nennen. Lyriker allerdings haben – im Gegensatz zu Epikern und Filmemachern – eine sperrige, nicht unmittelbar zugängliche Art, ihren Inspirationen Ausdruck zu verleihen, denn viele verweigern sich dem Mythos der Objektivität. Das macht ihre Werke schwer konsumierbar, vor allem, da die Häme oft keinen passenden Anknüpfungspunkt findet. Lyrik ist schlicht nicht “witzig”, nicht unmittelbar emotional genug!

Wahrnehmen wird erleichtert durch eine “Breite” des äußeren Panoramas, der zur Verfügung stehenden Zeitskala, der Darstellung. Dieser äußeren Breite verweigern sich viele Lyriker. Durch Komprimierung – Verdichtung – wird der Hauptplatz des Geschehens in die Psyche der Rezepienten verlagert. Dies wird von vielen möglichen Leserinnen und Lesern als übergriffig erfahren, soll ein Buch doch “dort draußen” agieren und nicht “hier drinnen” – alles andere würde einen Kontrollverlust bedeuten, eine Hingabe an inspirierende, besitzergreifende Kräfte. Ein Konsumgut soll durch mich konsumiert werden, keinesfalls aber darf es mich vereinnahmen. Es muss so lose angelegt sein, dass es jederzeit ablegbar ist. Ein Gedicht aber, vor allem, wenn es “auswendig gelernt” wurde, siedelt unablösbar an der Innenseite des Bewusstseins, inwändig. Diese Befremdung – das Berührtwerden im Innenraum durch das erkennende “Fremde” der Lyrik – bewirkt eine Abwehrhaltung.

Anders gesagt: Ein gelungenes Gedicht ist kein Konsumgut, sondern eine Verteilerstation für die inneren Aufmerksamkeitsströme. Es bietet sich an, hier einzuwenden, dass dies auch auf alle anderen Medien zutreffe. Dem kann ich nur beipflichten, muss aber ergänzen, dass diese Funktion bei einem Gedicht stärker ins Bewusstsein tritt, eben weil im Außenraum (auf dem Papier) so viel weniger vorhanden ist als im Innenraum (im mentalen Geschehen). Im Spiegel eines Gedichtes findet nicht jeder sein bekanntes Gesicht- egal, wieviel Geld er oder sie für plastische Chirurgie ausgegeben hat. Nicht jede innere Bewegung, die uns ein Gedicht abverlangt, ist altvertraut.

Natürlich ist es nicht fair, diese Kräfte gegeneinander auszuspielen und nur unter den gegenwärtigen Machtverhältnissen moralisch vertretbar. Leicht gelangt man zu Stammtischargumenten – und zuckt hilflos mit den Schultern. Dichtkunst aber ist der schiere Widerpart dieser Larmoyanz, denn sie ermöglicht Verbindlichkeit und Lebendigkeit. Inspiration bedingt ja nicht unbedingt Kontrollverlust, wohl aber eine Erweiterung der Perspektive, nicht unbedingt eine Hingabe an Dämonen, wohl aber eine Aktivierung zusätzlicher, schöpferischer Kräfte. Inspiration ist – im Gegensatz zur Auslieferung in die Besessenheit – eine kreative Weiterung des Wahrnehmungsfeldes. Diesen Unterschied zu sehen, heißt sich jenseits der Stahltüren verhärteten Schutzbedürfnisses zu begeben und eine ästhetische Erfahrung zuzulassen. Wer aber kennt diese kant’sche Art von Mut?

Es bestand in geschichtlicher Zeit schon immer das Bedürfnis, aus den Verfassern von Gedichten und ihren Werken etwas “Besonderes” zu machen, das nicht in den Alltag integriert ist. Das gilt auch für ein gutes Essen. Unter den gegenwärtigen Umständen allerdings führt diese Haltung zum inspirativen Geschehen der Lyrik zu einer negativen Ausgrenzung. Ja, ich glaube, dass sich die Rolle der Lyrik dann ändern wird, wenn es mehr und mehr Menschen gibt, die ganz selbstverständlich mit Lyrik leben, in Lyrik wachsen, sich in ihrem Alltag auf Lyrik beziehen. Insofern will ich diesen kleinen Versuch, in dessen Verlauf ich mir so manches lyrische Beiwort verkniffen habe, mit einem Gedicht beenden:

Ein Klick auf die Bilder öffnet vergrößerte Darstellungen!
Copyright für diesen Essay und alle seine Bestandteile: Jo Richter, 2009

I hadn’t seen her for quite along time. Before she went into hospital for what seemed the hundredth time. In and out, recuperate, fall, admit, rehabilitate, discharge home, fall. Increasingly frail with each admission and discharge. I saw her now before me and I almost missed seeing how the spirit that used to be so strong in her was hovering, just outside her. She had always talked to me about my daimon. Her idea of it was not what I thought it was but she described it as the real me, which I could not see, but which was plainly visible to her. She said it was always standing behind me, watching over my shoulder and the way she said it I took it that my daimon was disapproving of everything I did. I thought she used it as a sort of control over me, a way of bring her world into focus against mine. She always said she failed to understand me. I had gone wrong somewhere in the distant recess of her mind and I was lost to her. My daimon was the last fragment of me that she could preserve. I guessed that my daimon was obedient, compliant, conservative, silent, smiling and forever a little boy.

I thought we had no issues between us. The issues we had were long in the past and would never be resolved. They just were what kept us together but apart. We put up with each other’s foibles, took what we both could from the dunnage of our lives. For all I knew, what she thought of me was some brief moment in 1961 when I last never talked back.

When we met she always asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. If I answered in the affirmative then she made me the tea, put out the biscuits, then sat sans tea and biscuits herself, watched me drink and eat. When I had finished it was always the same question about having more. She could never fill me up to her satisfaction. If I answered instead no, which I almost always did as I could not stand her insipid tea and sugary biscuits, then she made one herself then we sat in silence for fifteen minute while she ate and drank.

The accident.

I looked at her hand and saw this hard, ebony, twisted, purple, monstrosity that I could not bring myself to touch. She saw my reluctance for what it was almost in an instance and pulled the appendage away and shuffled off to her bathroom. I heard the sound of running water, running water that echoed the tears in my own head that I could not shed for this woman who was my mother.

After a lonely spell in the dark, Q used deep sympathy to conjure a wyvern, uncoiling it from the sand and smiling into the pitch as the creature’s scaly spindles arced terribly against the ridged outline of dune peaks beyond. The boy patted himself on the chest in salutation, and the wyvern grudgingly huffed its disgusted acknowledgement.

As a rule of desert magicks, a conjurer holds his subject in servitude for one deed, after which the summoned may choose to return to the region from whence it arrived. Or it may stay and do as it pleases. Because of this second option, awakening a spirit so powerful as Al Taneen, the desert dragon, was an incredibly brazen maneuver, even in the middle regions between day and night.

“Marhaba,” said Q, staring up at the hulking shadow before him. “I need you for only a simple task.”

The wyvern growled and the earth trembled beneath it. It opened its jaws and spoke, and the words issuing forth were horrifying to the ear, the cacophonous vestiges of a language surely forgotten if, that is, it have ever been known to the realm of man in the first place. Q did not stutter or hesitate.

“You will give me your name,” he said to the wyvern.

Again the draconian beast upended the silent desert night with a bellowing grumble, heating the air to an acidic mist with its rancid breath. The words came as flaming arrows, fraying the link between earth and sky, sending sonic reverberations into untold leagues.
“I promise you, friend, this is all I ask.” Q’s voice was calm and defiant. “And then you may go, or stay and devour me, should you so desire.”

The wyvern lowered its serpentine head, allowing a sliver of starlight to illuminate its gruesome visage. Q noticed the eyes, blue and crystalline, leaking tears of blood onto the rocky underscales of the dragon’s snout. The monster’s fortress of teeth was the gate of a war-worn parapet, hiding the scent of rot behind its spires. It sniffed and grunted before retreating back into the darkness.

Two words were then whispered on the air: Wadi Malak. And then nothing. Silence enveloped the swirling mix of heated wind and dragon vapor, creating a dense and sickly vacuum. All movement, save Q’s steady breathing, ceased entirely. The demon apprentice met the stony gaze of Wadi Malak with even measures of pain and gratitude. Without flinching, both smiled. Two killers at a crossroads, admiring one another’s stubborn resolve.

“Shukran,” said Q.

“Salam,” answered Wadi Malak.

Then the beast pirouetted in the sand and bounded skyward, pounding its wings with an electric fury, graceful and disgusting as it whipped earthen debris into a maelstrom beneath its ghastly airborne corpus. Sandpaper scales along Wadi Malak’s back, invalid from the mighty creature’s long slumber, careened violently toward the ground and sent Q sprawling under a fusillade of petrified bone and sinew. Several pieces lanced his flesh, and Q, blinded with pain, tumbled into a grainy ditch and passed out.

When he awoke, he was naked, scab-covered and surrounded by skulls. Skulls of man and animal alike, foisted on a bed of bones. Q did not jump up in fright, but instead rose slowly and surveyed his surroundings. Despite the ceaseless darkness of the mystery land that had abducted him, Q’s senses had quickly adapted and become attuned to the unexpected. And the musty smell of subterranean confines was unmistakable.

Q crawled in the direction of the least foul smelling air, craning his head toward a vague sound of dripping water. Half-healed gashes reopened on his skin, and soon the scent of his blood rose thickly into the dank. He crawled for a solid hour like this, bleeding and thirsty, into further and further reaches of nothing. Then he halted. Q felt the presence of another, heard the dull rise and fall of breath. Someone, or something, was very close. Its low, gravelly voice echoed into the lightless din and sent ice across Q’s bare skin.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Quadamah Al-Ayman.”

In Spain I discovered the poetry of Lorca.

Federico Garcia Lorca’s lecture on duende is a precise statement of the virtue of “life” as the autonomous value to be institutionalized in electracy.  “Duende” is a survival of “daimon” that, as Lorca (and every other modern who used the term, including Heidegger) explained, had nothing to do with Christian “demons.”  “The duende I am talking about is the dark, shuddering descendant of the happy marble-and-salt demon of Socrates, whom he angrily scratched on the day Socrates swallowed the hemlock, and of that melancholy demon of Descartes, a demon who was small as a green almond and who sickened of circles and lines and escaped down the canals to listen to the songs of blurry sailors” (Lorca, 43).  Lorca lists Nietzsche as one of those scorched by this spirit of the earth, “who looked for its external forms on the Rialto Bridge and in the music of Bizet” (Nietzsche noted the change in his musical tastes, away from Wagner toward Bizet, that occurred as part of his insight into eternal recurrence).

Daimon

Lorca’s identification of duende with the genius of a specific region (Andalucia) and the soul of its people manifests the modifications in this Ancient spirit passed along through Romanticism.  His description of the evening the Andalusian singer Pastora Pavon was performing in a little tavern in Cadiz is one of the best evocations of the peculiar nature of “genius” as conatus, in clarifying that this Kraft has nothing to do with craftsmanship or technical ability, but only with soul.  Pastora is a master of craft.  “For a while she played with her voice of shadow, of beaten tin, her moss-covered voice, braiding it  into her hair or soaking it in wine or letting it wander away to  the farthest, darkest bramble patches.  No use. Nothing” (45).  Lorca identifies by name and description several members of the legendary tough crowd.  A tiny man sarcastically murmured from somewhere “Viva Paris!” implying “here we care nothing about ability,   technique, skill.  Here we are after something else.”  “As though crazy, torn like a medieval weeper, La Nina de los Peines got to her feet, tossed off a big glass of firewater and began to sing with a scorched throat, without voice, without breath or color, but with duende.  She was able to kill all the scaffolding of the song and leave way for a furious, enslaving duende, friend of sand winds, who made the listeners rip their clothes with the same rhythm as do the blacks of the Antillis when,  in the ‘lucumi’ rite, they huddle in heaps before the statue of Santa Barbara” (45-6).

.
Lorca places “duende” in the family of terms for the bittersweet feeling of eros, in all the versions that spread through the Black Atlantic, the creole cultures that invented the musics of tango, samba, jazz –- each with its own mood (mufarse, saudade, blues).  A key element in the description is that duende may be invited, but it comes and goes on its own terms, but is most likely to appear when “death” is a possibility and its preference is for the rim of the wound.  No philosopher has ever been able to account for it, but Lorca as poet gathers a series of images to convey the sensory quality of the feeling:  “The hut and the cart wheel and the razor and the prickly beards of the shepherds and the peeled moon and the fly and moist pantry shelves and torn-down buildings and lace-covered saints and lime and the wounding line of eaves and miradors possess, in Spain, fine weeds of death, the allusions and murmurings (perceptible to any alert spirit) that fill our memory with  the stale air of our own passage” (48).

.
Lorca distinguishes duende from the muse and from angels, who have a different relationship with inspiration and external visitation.  Edward Hirsch in his study of artistic inspiration treats these three modes together, to account for the widest range of art examples (Hirsch, 2002).  Michel Serres’s Angels explicitly develops the idea of the angels and daimons as messengers between mortals and gods, whose function has been taken over in modernity by information technologies (Serres, 1995).  The connection with the Gateway, in the context of Trickster stories, is pointed out by Lewis Hyde.  “All tricksters like to hang around the doorway, that being one of the places where deep-change accidents occur.  Eshu is no exception.  He likes especially the doorway  between heaven and earth, which is why his face appears on the divination board.  The art of divination makes heaven and earth briefly coincident.  Eshu is a sort of slippery joint at the point of their contingency, revealing fate or reversing it depending on the disposition of things.  It may well be that fate is set in heaven, but it must be played out here on earth, and between heaven and earth there is a gap inhabited by this shifty mediator” (Hyde, 1998: 124).  Marcus Novak brings all these threads together in his discussion of liquid architecture when he suggests that cyberspace may be constructed in accord with the old dreams of magic.  Duende is the mood of dwelling in information, and poetry is its logic (Novak, 228).

Narita Airport

Around 5 PM on the 12th of April, we landed at Narita Airport. It would’ve been a wiser choice to land at Haneda Airport, but we didn’t realize that at the time. Haneda would have been closer to our hotel and its architecture is more artistic and pleasing to the eye. No biggie.

We walked all the way from the terminal gate to the customs. The queue was quite long, but the Japanese were organized and the line kept moving along smoothly until it was our turn to check in. They asked us to place both forefingers in small fingerprint scanner and press down on it so that it clicked like a trackpad button would do on a laptop. “Thank you”.

Hehe, shower rooms

We collected our luggage and withdrew some Japanese Yens (we couldn’t find exchange in Kuwait). Thankfully the ATMs can be translated into english, so there was no guess work involved. All that was left was heading to an information desk and asking what’s the best way to reach our hotel.

There were two options: either we go by bus, or take the subway train. To take the bus, we had to wait another 20 minutes, so my friend said we should use the train; it’s faster, but we’d have to drag our luggage with us manually. I asked the lady behind the desk if it was okay to take our luggage inside the train and she smiled and confidently said, “Yes, it’s okay. No problem”. She gave us a subway map and pointed out what route to take. We realized later that it was the long way of reaching our hotel. Ahem.

Tokyo Subway

The subway train was crowded and there were no free seats to sit on. We had to stay on our feet for what seemed like an hour or so. We also noticed that we were the only people on the train talking; the Japanese were very quiet, courteous and considerate of their surroundings. No talking on cell phones, no chatter, no smoking or eating —it’s like a school classroom!

The train made a few stops and we couldn’t make out what the names of the stations were so we had to bother a few people with our questions. Most people didn’t speak english very well so we had to point, use sign language, and broken Japanese to get the point across until we reached our destination. I injured my finger while dragging my luggage across platforms as we switched trains at some point.

Minato, Tokyo

Finally, around 7 PM we reached the final station and got off. People were walking in lines and always stayed on the left side of corridors, pathways and even escalators. The right side would be occupied by people walking in the opposite direction, or in the case of escalators, for people who climbed up/down in a hurry. Very organized society I tell you.

It was getting late and we were completely worn out, but alas, the subway exit was right in front of us. There was just the matter of going up and out. Wait… No escalators?

Yours truly had to turn into the Incredible Hulk and lift 29.1 kilograms of luggage up a long flight of stairs. My friend joked that this was how the Japanese trained their martial artists every morning. Yeah… we should’ve taken the bus. :/

After getting into our hotel and resting for a while, we went out for a walk around the area before calling it a night. Most shops close around 8 or 9 PM so it was a little late, but as you can see, their McDonald’s branches are open 24 hours.

Every few steps, you’d notice these vending machines that sell soft drinks, water, coffee, etc… It’s obvious that Japan’s infrastructure makes life necessities very accessible; you’ll never be too far away from something you need. Subway stations, buses, maps, shops, restaurants, vending machines —they’re all around.

Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Bay

We walked until we reached a pier of some sort and we snapped pictures of the Rainbow Bridge. I took more than one picture, but this one was as best I could get, believe it or not. (You can check the Wikipedia link for a better image.)

Pachinko

At first glance, I thought this was an anime store, because it had posters of famous characters placed outside, but no, it’s a Pachinko parlor. Pachinko machines are like slot machines with pinballs, and they’re very popular throughout Japan because, they say, they’re addictive. We saw people both young and old playing there.

I didn’t take photos inside because it was very loud and there was a haze of cigarette smoke. If you want to know more as well as what it looks from the inside, click here.

Tokyo Tower

Our night has come to an end, so before climbing up to our hotel room, we had to stop and snap a photo of the Tokyo Tower:

Alrighty, that’s it for one day. Good night!

Minggu tgl 18 april 09, gw ke xl centre Cikokol Tangerang tepatnya,
XLC Tangerang CIKOKOL Komp. Ruko Mahkota Mas, Jl. Thamrin No. 8, Tangerang.

masuk parkiran bayar 1.000
terus ke Xl bertransaksi ria.
dah gitu cabut, kasi karcis parkir …. dia minta 1.000 lagi .. weeeq
gak salah mas.. itu kan lom sejam (kata gw).
iyaa… serebu lagi.
mang itu dah berapa lama ?? 36 menit
kan blom sejam ?
maksimal 2.000 mau berapa jam pun.
iya.. tp gw blom sejam…
sama aja pak, mau 5 jam juga segitu …
dengan dongkol g suruh cew g kasi secengan … (kampret tuh orang)

klo gak salah pengelola parkirnya itu sunparking.

gw negasin buka masalah 1.000 nya …

setau gw model parkir tuh kek gini :

1. sejam pertama 1.000 sejam berikutnya 1.000
2. sejam pertama 1.000 sejam berikutnya 1.000 maksimal 5.000
3. sejam pertama 0 sejam berikutnya 1.000 maksimal 5.000

menurut gw ini sangat2 merugikan konsumen.
apa emang ada model perparkiran kaya di komp. ruko mahkota mas ini ??

dan setau gw … yang menentukan model billing perparkiran adalah pengelola
ruko tersebut. Bukan outsource perparkiran.( tapi gak tau juga dengan kasus ini).

PANTES AJA TU KOMPLEK SEPI BENER ….
mungkin salah satunya kek gini, orang jadi males kesitu.

Ada yg pernah ngalamin gan …..

Undoubtedly, the problem of such an arrangement is a certain lack of inspired dedication. This is symptomatic, unfortunately, of my state at present, since I’m quite incapable of sourcing employment! The rotters reject, reject, reject – even jobs I’m easily qualified for. Academic qualifications seem to count for very little – ancient history moreso. If I had experience I’d be alright, but the sods won’t take the risk.

Since I’m at a loose end I’ll write about the anthetic function, which is another of my favourite words. Anthesis is actually a botanical term meaning ‘to blossom’, and in my own system of jargon (poetic symbolism if I bothered to write anything with convinction – blasted willpower!) it is the Field or Lake, a function indicative of concentrated, contained energies. Phenomenologically it indicates a mental construct of sufficient coherence and content that the construct takes on, as it were, a life of its own – much like the poetic Voice, the Self and so on. These entities then possess an identity of their own, capable of further acts of fruition subsequent and to a degree determined by their internal structure.

Interestingly, I recently came across a lecture that ties in with this: Elizabeth Gilbert on genius. I’d never heard of the lady before, but she talks here about the genius (the daimon) in precisely the sense that I mean it, with pretty much identical coordination in its relationship to the author. I read about the daimon studying ancient Greece during my degree, and the idea kept me glued to the trail of it, not least because I’m an ardent eudaimonist at the same time. Perhaps the most exciting part of this historical mystery is that it regularly pops up through the record – Goethe, for instance – so it certainly never lost its appeal, and its form seems to stay roughly similar wherever it is expressed (take the kami of Shinto, for instance).

Since the transcendent function arises from delimitation and enclosure and articulates the condition of logical structures in the sense of boundaries – how boundaries work in relation to the grammar of systems of ideas (how they are determined) – I can perhaps make it so that the anthetic function works analogously to the psychedelic. It is at this juncture, then, that the creativity of the psychedelic is subsumed into these coherent entities. Where the psychedelic forges the prima materia, the anthetic hammers it into shape and life.

Sometimes I wonder how I got into these peculiar places. Usually I start by turning ideas inside out, like an old sock. I wonder what would happen if I did that to what I’ve written so far…

At 23, and having just spent two years parlaying in the wash with wizards of the old cloak, the boy had become a jagged, olive man, tall enough to lean under the crackling spray of the windswept Shomali downpours. Clean bearded and wiry, he wandered the streets of old Lahore, eyeless screamers of the lowlands well behind him, his embittered gaze trained for the cleric minstrels that were his quarry. The hearts of his enemies beat within the city’s high stone walls, and beneath its marble-slabbed corridors blood crust gave way to ghosts. He was ready to face them.

His long journey took him through the Turkish salt marshes and fetid shit-dens of southern Persia, and preceding these nightmares, the alabaster swathes of Arabian dust from whence he began.

The name given to him was Qudamah Al-Ayman, but he had long forgotten all but Q. His mother had been a whore and a thief, who was flayed from end to end by a merchant sheik who kept a scimitar handy. His mother’s blood had dabbled Q’s infant face as he lay nearby on a bed of camel cloth. Minutes later, that very sheik was bludgeoned to death with an oblong stone by a man who could have been Q’s father. That man, it was whispered, had been drawn and quartered a day or two after the fact. The baby Qudamah was left alone, soiled and hungry.

As fate would have it, Q’s life was saved by a daimon, bread breaker of Iblis and servant of the desert underworld. No more than a creeping shadow to the naked eye, the daimon, which was called Katib, slipped into the gore-smattered tent and retrieved the wailing boy, ushering him therefore into a life of invisibility and silent ire.

By the age of 16, Q had slaughtered more than five dozen men and women in the service of Katib, who required his lamb to do the bidding of the ever-greedy, nightshade race of jinn. Katib was never cruel or callous to his innocent, involuntary retainer. He accepted the boy’s role of submission without excitement, and placed his devilish demands in Q’s unconscious, waking dreams. Understanding his own servitude before the scorching hearth of Iblis the deceiver, Katib knew well the pulsating fury and untapped wisdom locked within the youthful killer.

Q became an assassin of such notorious repute that his stealth and dexterity with a crooked blade was instant legend from Sana’a to Jerusalem. But his intensity and focus as a scholar were his true virtues. Katib, dark poet and relentless cannibal, invoked the worst of the human spirit in his orders to Q, but also granted his slave access to deep scrolls of the secret mystics. Despite daily forays into larceny and severed throats, the boy retained a venerable heart, longing always for the ancient texts, wherein perhaps the answers lay to the sadness that pained his desperate soul.

It is said that some are born with an unconscious affinity for worlds beyond this one, manifesting in a taciturn recognition of powers greater than those dictated in the realm of man. These rare beings suffer their lives in obscurity, hoping some day to breach the gap between life and death in an instant of gratitude and understanding. Thus afflicted, Q detested the impure deeds that were his repertoire, but stomached them patiently, as a man prepared to accept responsibility for his sins in the spirit house. He catered to Katib’s bloodlust and bided time until the moment of his true vocation arrived.

At 21, Q’s daimon keeper offered him apprenticeship with the most arcane charnel creatures of the middle kingdom. Tasked with entering a seething vortex of sun washed Arabian desert, and forced to last three days without food or water, he was then presented with the right to follow the four defunct imams of yesterday’s descent. These hooded masters existed on the lathe of flesh, and it was only at the moment of ultimate despair that their wicked sovereignty revealed itself in moon rendered opaque.

Hallucinating and sun sick, Q leapt into the astral gate, grasping for the blasphemous robes on camelback, and his future was thereafter altered.

To be continued…

CHARACTER

Pull down the curtains on a bad play

And bring down hope from the sky.

Open the curtains to the scene of a great play,

Scripted by the playwright of a dream.

Reveal Daimon:

Let the lines flow from your heart

And act on impulse

To reach the state of Wu Wei,

Allowing life to flow.

By B.X.C. MegaSonic

Sócrates pergunta a Diotima o que é o amor: “ Um grande gênio (daímon megas) ó Sócrates; e com efeito, tudo o que é gênio está entre um deus e um mortal”

Estamos Matando Nossos Demônios

O Demônio a que me refiro não é o popularizado pelo afã cristão, não é lúcifer nem diabo e sim o que era denominado pela filosofia grega de Daímon, ou seja, a voz que ressoava na consciência do filósofo grego Sócrates guiando suas ações, atribuída por ele como um espírito sobrenatural de uma natureza intermediária entre a mortal e a divina, que trabalha frequentemente inspirando ou aconselhando os humanos.

A referência à daímon que se encontra no dicionário Liddell-Scott é de “destribuir destinos”.Segundo Sócrates, esses daímones vagariam pela terra sem serem vistos, e sua presença só seria notada por suas ações benéficas. Na Teogonia, Hesíodo diz que eles possuem a função de distribuir aos mortais “os haveres de bem e mal”.

No Banquete está: “o de interpretar e transmitir aos deuses o que vem dos homens, e os homens o que vem dos deuses” como os deuses não podem se misturar com os homens, os daímones seriam mensageiros e intérpretes.Na República daímon é guia de almas, isso surge assunto surge quando o Armênio, que após voltar do mundo dos mortos, chama o lugar onde as almas são julgadas de divino. Nesse lugar, Láquesis, filha da Necessidade expõe às almas o critério de escolha da nova existência. Acrescenta que cada alma escolherá tanto o daímon que a acompanhará, quanto a vida que levarão. A responsabilidade pelas duas escolhas será atribuída inteiramente a ele e nenhum deus poderá ser acusado de interferir no processo de escolha. Após o processo, a deusa destina a cada alma, o daímon escolhido com a seguinte função: “guardar a sua vida e fazer cumprir o que escolhera.”

É apartir daí que quero transpor isso para uma realidade atual.Mas antes ainda quero apenas salientar rapidamente a lenda das Narfs, pleiteada pelo diretor M.Night Shyamalan. A lenda diz que antigamente as Narfs (seres aquáticos semelhantes ao humano) tinham uma harmonia muito intensa na comunicação com os seres humanos, e desta forma elas aconselhavam ao seres humanos sempre o melhor caminho a ser percorrido e o melhor a se fazer em situações específicas, fornecendo ao homem um guia jamais visto.Elas despertavam nos seres humanos algo – uma sensação muito forte-muito importante para o caminhar da humanidade.

A analogia entre os Daímones e as Narfs é facilmente transposta para nossa realidade em forma de palavras conhecidas como consciência ou gênio, mas a mais ideal é ética, o homem é um ser ético: o único ser a pensar e a se perguntar como agir diante do outro, da comunidade e de si mesmo.É a Ética que dá a resposta.

Percorri neste texto para fazer algumas perguntas,todas elas relacionadas para com a humanidade em geral: Quais escolhas você tem feito? Qual destino você escolheu para sua vida?Seu Daímon está vivo o suficiente para dizer a você as suas responsabilidades?Qual o amor (grande gênio) você possui para destinar a sua vida?

Estamos matando nossos demônios, sobrevivendo com a insignificância das nossas próprias idéias para movimentar a vida como se a existência fosse apenas um ato individual. Não deixe morrer seu Daímon, não deixe de escutá-lo, é através dele que você achará o destino correto que os deuses tentam te mostrar. Está em você a capacidade de se comunicar com sua ética, e com ela,  sentir a forte sensação que ajudará o caminhar da humanidade.Faça com que sua existência seja importante para a vida da humanidade.

Cada pessoa humana é obrigada a conduzir a sua própria vida, sendo portanto, responsável pelas suas conseqüências, sejam elas inúteis, boas ou más.

Bibliografia

q       HESÍODO. Teogonia / Os trabalhos e dias. Trad. Ana Elias Pinheiro & José Ribeiro Ferreira. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 2005. (Versos 120-126.)

q       PLATÃO. O Banquete. Trad. de José Cavalcanti de Souza et alli. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1972. (202 d-e).

q       PLATÃO.República.São Paulo: Aterra, 1962. (641 c-1), (620 d-8).

q       Caderno de Atas da Primeira Reunião da Sociedade Brasileira de Platonistas (ANPOF), Suplemento ao Boletim do CPA, n. 10