3. What caliber of writer does a book such as this call for?

September 15, 2024

This book is an attempt to reach that domain or dynamic that is not reachable with a normal thrust, e.g., with the intellect and concepts. It cannot be written in the normal outline fashion, i.e., simply putting together an outline and then following it step by step. Instead, the thematic shows itself in ways that stay open to meanderings and windings, such that the pathway of the book took turns that were not planned.

Heidegger thinks in a language-saying that hints at and “starts” this enriching opening for thinking.  He calls it mindful or minding thinking (das besinnliche Nachdenken and then das besinnliche Denken), a way of thinking that is “other” to how we normally think and say:

Minding thinking. When we come to know what is own to us as humans, namely that we are thinking beings, we become minding beings. We are oriented to think. Minding thinking is careful, pondering, contemplating thinking [nachdenken] of the sense of things, which is at work in everything that is. 

This minding thinking [das besinnliche Denken] requires a greater effort … a longer preparation … a more subtle care-diligence… And it must also be able to wait, just as the farmer [must wait] to see whether the seed sprouts and grows to maturity [becomes ripe].
(GA 16:520)

In kinship with the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, I will use his words as a mirror to shed light on this “other” way of writing. Murakami’s words mirror back to me who I am as a writer – more “aspiring-to” than achieving the goal. This path is long.

In his novel 1Q84 Murakami describes his character Tengo:

Tengo was aware … that … a new wellspring was forming inside him. Not that its water was gushing forth: it was more like a tiny spring among the rocks. The flow may have been limited, but it was continuous, welling up drop by drop. He was in no hurry. He felt no pressure. All he had to do was wait patiently for the water to collect in the rocky basin until he could scoop it up. Then he would sit at his desk, turning what he had scooped into words, and the story would advance quite naturally. (1Q84, 284)

This is what I see when looking into Murakami as mirror: Be patient, wait for something to emerge from the “wellspring.” No hurry. No pressure. I found myself at this juncture, again and again. And many times what “collected in the rocky basin” called for going down a road that was never planned for. This happened many times while writing the book, “waiting patiently for the water to collect.” One outstanding example of this is the discussion of Plato’s chora, which I had not planned. It was a shock to me when “scooping it up,” I suddenly realized how well chora fits with the “boundless” apeiron. The question is not Why did I not think of this earlier? But rather: How does it happen that, sitting patiently within the “wellspring that was forming,” an epiphany emerges?

Mirroring the central place of experience and transformation:

(From here on all the numbers in parentheses refer to Murakami’s non-fiction book Novelist as a Vocation.)

… down-to-earth vitality. (7)

… intelligence had to be replaced by some larger, more enduring gift. (14)

Experience is useful for a writer, of whatever kind. (86)

… the desire for transformation is only to be expected. (201)

When I set out to write a novel that is likely to possess special meaning to me – in other words, a comprehensive, potentially transformative work – I need free access to a vast, unlimited space … (92)

These words mirror what is at the core of my writing as well. Concrete experience is central. It is beyond intellectual thinking. It is down-to-earth, not abstract. It needs critical thinking to stay “honest” – even as it is beholden to the more nontransparent concrete experience – within “a vast, unlimited space.”   And within this “vast, unlimited space” there is “comprehensive, potentially transformative work” that yields change, transformation.

Mirroring the pace of this way of writing:

ln my considered opinion, anyone with a quick mind or an inordinately rich store of knowledge is unlikely to become a novelist. That is because the writing of a novel, or the telling of a story, is an activity that takes place at a slow pace – in low gear, so to speak. (10)

What’s important is not arriving at clear conclusions but retaining the specifics of a certain situation – in other words, your material – as fully as you can. (75)

It is especially problematic when the text under discussion is not just “slow” but operates at multiple levels with significant complexity. In such cases, their so-called translation twists and distorts the original. (11)

… the exact opposite of the prescribed order … our futures, it seems, don’t unfold in the ways that we expect (19)

 Of course, my book is not a novel. But my deep sense is that it calls for the same pace and the same reverence for words that say and in saying show, rather than define. It calls for “fully retaining the specifics” that reveal themselves indirectly. It calls for being ready for unexpected surprises while writing!

Mirroring how the mind works and plays, responding to what shows itself in this way of writing:

There’s another aspect of time that one must take into account when writing a novel. That is the “gestation period,” something especially important when writing a long work. The “quiet time” spent germinating and cultivating the seeds of what is growing within you. Through this internal process you build up the zeal to tackle the novel. (106)

When a novel is on the right track, characters take on a life of their own, the story moves forward by itself, and a very happy situation evolves whereby the novelist just ends up writing down what he sees happening in front of him. And in some cases the character takes the novelist by the hand and leads him or her to an unexpected destination. (162)

… I began with an internal image of what I eventually wanted to write, but the process of getting there happened naturally. No detailed planning was involved – only after I had arrived did it hit me: “So that’s how I got here!” (66)

There are several things that need to be unpacked in these three quotations. To see where they lead.

1. One, the “gestation period,” where the writer uses “quiet time” to watch things germinate and unfold. Murakami calls this an “internal process.” (For now, let’s leave it at that.) 
2. Two, the writer of the novel discovers that the characters take on a life of their own, such that the writer “gives in” to how a character needs to unfold. Ursula Le Guin shared the same experience: A character in one of her novels had to die, even though she herself was not happy with this move!
3. If we consider the message of the third quotation – that the process had little planning and is virtually impossible to describe – we come up against something that is illogical, but which shows itself within the formless, nondual dynamic that my book lets emerge. Namely, there is a formless factor hidden within the dynamic, which the writer has no choice but to accept.
4. In my case, I already mentioned how Plato’s chora showed up for me and how I had no choice but to go there. Another example is awareness. I never planned a chapter on awareness, but it became an essential part of the book. 
5. Finally, even after Murakami tells us this and even after I had the same experience of the necessity of “going there,” I don’t quite know what happens. I cannot give it a name. But I know it as the way.

Mirroring the spontaneous bliss in writing:

[After the morning ritual, coffee etc.] Then I sit there and muse about what to write that day. Such moments are pure bliss. To tell the truth, I have never found writing painful … What’s the point of writing, anyway, if you’re not enjoying it? (34-5)

I feel a sense of profound well-being, a natural high. (69)

While writing this book – over months and years – I experienced this bliss. It was hard work and took many months over some years. But the work was always a delight.

Mirroring language, saying, writing:

Someone whose message is clearly formed has no need to go through the many steps it would take to transpose that message into a story. All he has to do is put it directly into words – it’s much faster ·and can be easily communicated to an audience. (10)

[Such people’s] brains move in a more rapid speed. They may not be able to adjust to the slower vehicle. (11)

… it is the right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language and expand the range of its effectiveness. (31)

Language is a living thing, as are human beings. When living people try to acquire a living language, flexibility is a must. Each side is in motion, and you have to find the most effective point of contact. (136)

It is as if the words were coming through my body instead of from my head. (32)

Which language? Which saying? Which writing?

1. The first two quotations describe language and words that are clear, easy, what we are used to. Without deeper reflection, we normally take this kind of language for granted.
2. The rest of the quotations speak of a language that is more indirect, more intuitive, slower. Words and language that expand beyond definition. A language and saying that “experiments with the possibilities of language and expands the range of its effectiveness.” A dynamic, living language-saying that requires flexibility. A language that is not conceptual and not dualistic. 
3. Now, what does Murakami want to say with the words “through my body” in the last quotation? And what does the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio mean when he says that “consciousness isn’t just a brain function but involves the entire body”? (See Wikipedia: Damasio’s theory of consciousness.)   
   We have inherited the traditional understanding of mind as not the body. It is with this mind that we conceptualize and do logic. But Murakami and Damasio provide openings to an expansive and less dualistic mind-body dynamic, where words do not come just from the mind, but from the nondual oneness of body and mind.
   For example, being in love involves butterflies in the stomach (physical) and heightened emotions, which are not separate from mind or consciousness. It is an intense experience, one that brings joy as well as a certain pain when the two lovers are not physically together. And the words used with each other come from all of these!
   I submit that this is what Murakami wants to say with the words “through my body” – the physical, emotions and mind all together.
4. Within this context let me now offer some words from Mohamed Omar Salem, in his essay “The Heart, Mind, and Spirit.” (The words in quotation marks in the following paragraph are drawn from extensive quotations by Salem – see my book, pages 315-318.)

Let me highlight this intertwining – better said: the nondual one-ing – of heart, emotions, passion, wisdom; “the heart’s field directly involved in intuitive perception”; the heart’s appearing “to be sending meaningful messages to the brain that it not only understood, but also obeyed”; ”the concept of mind as a multi-component unit that is not only interacting with the physical environment … but also has the capacity to communicate with the cosmic universe through non-physical pathways” that “gives rise to the concept of the spirit as a non-physical element … that can communicate with the cosmos outside the constraints of space and time.” If we hear these words and gain a certain experience of those intertwinings (aka nondual dynamic), then it is clear that language, saying and writing are other than how we normally understand.

An example of this: the language of being in love – and used by the lovers – is elusive, non-fragmented, nonconceptual, freer. Rather than defining or delimiting, this language opens the dynamic. It gathers the said in a totally different way. It lets us see and feel this expansive oneness. Or, with Murakami, “It is as if the words were coming through my body instead of from my head.” (32)  I call this poi-etic language.

Language, then, is a poi-etic saying – rather than logical-propositional language. Connotation rather than denotation. Dynamic rather than static. Inexhaustible rather than definite. Open-ended rather than defining. To summarize, our usual language explains and defines, whereas poi-etic language says and in saying shows.

(For more on this see “Poi-etic language” in the Excerpts.)

Mirroring the way things are, aka the “world”:

… our world is constructed in a multi-layered way, so that the realm of the roundabout and the inefficient is in fact the flipside of that which his clever and efficient. (12)

Art lovers were shocked, on occasion even repulsed, when they first beheld the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. I doubt many still feel that way. To the contrary, their art is now found to be deeply moving, invigorating, even psychologically healing. That’s not because it has lost its originality with time: rather, that originality has become one with our perception, so that, naturally, it has become a part of us, a reference point, as it were. (57)

There is much to unravel here:

1. Heidegger says that the worldhood of the world has to do with the meaning that it carries in us.
2. Thus the discussion of “getting used to” van Gogh and Picasso, such that the way things are regarding the two painters has changed. The world as meaning developed. One could say that there was a transformation in thinking and perceiving. This kind of changing never stops.
3. For sure, “our world operates at multiple levels with significant complexity,” as we saw above.
4. The way things are is not black and white. Yes, we can learn much about what is black and white and measurable. And we can achieve much while using this rubric to understand the world – especially to produce things and apparatuses that are useful in living. For example, technical things. But there is something essential that moves beyond the duality of black and white and what is measurable.
5. Heidegger says that we “hardly” or “barely” know this other way that things are. In two ways.

One:

And what [the question of being] was once [in Hegel] wrested from the phenomena with the greatest effort of thinking albeit in fragments and in initial attempts, has long since been dismissed [trivialized]. (GA 2:3)

Two:

This most general and therefore undefinable term [being, Sein] also needs no definition. Everyone uses it all the time and already understands what it means. In this way, that which, as something hidden, drove ancient philosophizing [I say: Greek thinking] into unrest – and held it therein – has become a clearly self-evident truth, so much so that anyone who still asks about it is accused of methodological transgression. (GA 2:3-4)

Remember that already in Sein und Zeit (1927) Heidegger is asking about the “question of being”! And even though it took him many years to get to the no-thing and nondual beyng-Ereignis, already in Sein und Zeit he had an inkling of where to go:

Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, proceeding from the hermeneutics of Dasein, which, as the analytic of Existenz* has fixed the thread guiding all philosophical questioning at the point from which it arises and to which it returns.

[*marginal note: ‘Existenz’ is fundamental-ontological, i.e. in terms of the truth of being itself, and only in this way! (GA 2:51)

Already in the 1920s Heidegger was well-known and quite famous. Philosophers  from around the world came to hear Heidegger. These included the Daoist philosophers from China and the Buddhist philosophers from Japan. I submit that the above Heidegger quotation is Daoist. I read the above quotation as a way of saying dao and the manifestations of dao. Dao the formless and no-thing dynamic from within which manifestations (aka phenomena) arise and to which they return. This sentence stands out in Sein und Zeit, without an obvious connection to the rest of the book. But the marginal note, written later, is very clear about this connection.

One could say that Heidegger’s pursuit of the question of being, which culminated in Beiträge and its wording beyng-Ereignis, took hold already in Sein und Zeit – as a beacon for his life-time pursuit. (Note that the marginal note, written sometime after 1927, states clearly this pursuit.) Humbly, I see my book to be in a similar pursuit. I offer the following wording as one way to say-show what is at stake for Heidegger in 1927 up to his last writings shortly before he died in 1976: the no-thing, no-form nondual dynamic of radiant emptiness awareness.

True to me, my own:

I came across this line recently in The New York Times, writing about the American debut of the Beatles: “They produced a sound that was fresh, energetic, and unmistakably their own.” These words may provide the best definition of originality available: as fresh, energetic, and unmistakably your own.” (69-70)

Creativity in this sense involves the power to originate, to break away from the existing ways of looking at things, to move freely in the realm of the imagination, to create and recreate worlds fully in one’s mind-while supervising all this with a critical inner eye. (53)… it’s better to stand up for yourself and do what makes you happy, what you really want to do, the way you want to do it. Do that, and even if your reputation isn’t so great, if your books don’t sell well, you can tell yourself, “It’s okay. At least I enjoyed myself.” You’ll be convinced it was all worthwhile. (176-7)

From the beginning of my professional and for many years I used my “elders” as the standard by which to assess my writing. Along the way I veered from this standard. And slowly but surely I have come to the place where this book is the most original writing of mine. I would call it “fresh, energetic, and unmistakably my own.” Murakami says that this originality means “to break away from the existing ways” and “to move freely in the realm of [my own] imagination” with the ability to think and write creatively. I certainly “enjoyed myself”! 

One aspect of “unmistakingly my own” is the book’s layout. When I was conceiving the trajectory of the book and putting it together in my mind, I told friends about it. Friends with intelligent and fresh minds but with little formal training in philosophy and phenomenology. Their enthusiasm for my project led me to the decision to write a book that could do two things: reach these untrained-in-philosophy but “intelligent and fresh” minds and offer something to dedicated practitioners of phenomenology. And since I decided to write a book that would bridge these two groups, I knew that it would be original! And with that I feel that it is “fresh, energetic, and unmistakably my own.”

To paraphrase the second Murakami quotation here: I was standing up for myself and doing what makes me happy. I was doing what I really wanted to do, the way I wanted to do it. I do not worry about my reputation, because I know deep in my heart that this is who I am. I am convinced it is all worthwhile.    Attesting to these feelings of confidence and delight, in my book I quoted from two unknown authors. First, in 1938 Brenda Ueland: “Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.” (See my book, page 27.)

Second – words that mirror my delight as I was writing a book – from Stephen Cope in 2015:

But for now, here’s an experiment. Stop reading for a minute, and ask yourself these questions: Am I living fully right now? Am I bringing forth everything I can bring forth? Am I digging down into that ineffable inner treasure-house that I know is in there? That trove of genius? Am I living my life’s calling? Am I willing to go to any lengths to offer my genius to the world? (See my book, page 39.)

Now, after the book is in print, I realize that I can answer all these questions with a resounding Yes!

It is not about perfection:

… no matter what you have written, it can be made better. (102) 

The best that I could do at that time. (105)

Even though the book is not perfect, I am confident that it opens doors for a fresh rethinking.