saying x is in control is just a way of avoiding responsibility for one's negativity, a narcissistic way to blame X without taking the blame, but get the credit for informing the boss, the one who can hurt you, and hopefully them because you have sucked up to them, demagogues surf this meanness among us with ease. It is resident among us even without ressentiment and lost entitlement.
There is something disturbing about the fact that, thanks to today's communication technologies, we can follow the chaos and destruction caused by natural disasters in real time. We become morbidly fascinated while others fight for their lives, standing in front of the ruins of their existence. In this, I also recognized a part of myself in what you wrote.
Experiencing in near real time how these people suffered made me so angry, especially seeing how they were left alone despite all the resources available. I was so disgusted by it that I even wrote this short piece about it. https://zeitenwandel.substack.com/p/the-emergency
Fascinating exploration of destruction as a pathway to renewal—thank you! It resonates deeply in this chaotic age, but perhaps the focus shouldn’t be on annihilation but on reconstructing societal frameworks. We might embrace a multiplicity of truths and channel our desire for change into reshaping education, media, and community participation. Rather than letting extremists force their distorted realities, we can create stronger cultural and legal structures that reflect diverse experiences and make their version of 'truth' harder to sustain. If we want renewal, it’s through reinvention, not destruction.
Another very well written piece. So much food for thought from beginning to end, and some wonderful quotes I’ll have to return to later.
Most strikingly was your description of the atmosphere after the hurricane. So beautifully expressive and perfectly articulated. After the storms die down and you scope out the damage, the skies are eerily orange and dark with vibrant flashing colors from blown transformers in every direction. It’s always reminded me of getting off a spaceship in a strange land.
I am always fascinated by the "stillness" that characterises life in the eye of a typhoon. Time looks like a distortion and shows that what we usually call "time" is somehow not perceived in the same way by everyone and every living being (as Jakob von Uexküll suggested in his time).
That’s the one. The Vision and the Riddle. I have read it multiple times as it is the best encapsulation of his doctrine of the eternal recurrence, an idea which lures me like a mouse to a snake.
If you have ever been through a natural disaster, you will know how the perception of time and reality alter, some people see things in slow motion, some people see things as a cartoon.
When I saw my birth town destroyed, there is a disastrous feeling but at the same time a fascination, a desire to start new, a wonder of what really matters.
This post reminded me of something I read just a few days ago. The relation is...tangential at best, but still, I wonder if this might resonate with you. David Bentley Hart argues that the fall described in Genesis 3 must be understood as having occurred before our universe even existed. It's a radical position within Christian thought to be sure, but one that has always made sense to me (for various reasons I won't get into here). This quote sums up the main ideas at play rather well:
"The fall of rational creation and the conquest of the cosmos by death is something that appears to us nowhere within the course of nature or history; it comes from before and beyond both. We cannot search it out within the closed totality of the damaged world because it belongs to another frame of time, another kind of time, one more real than the time of death. . . . It may seem a fabulous claim that we exist in the long grim aftermath of a primeval catastrophe—that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is a phantom of true time, that we live in an umbratile interval between creation in its fullness and the nothingness from which it was called, and that the universe languishes in bondage to the “powers” and “principalities” of this age, which never cease in their enmity toward the kingdom of God—but it is not a claim that Christians are free to surrender."
This post is not by Hart, but is rather a discussion of his ideas by Jesse Hake. He does link to a chapter from a book Hart wrote, though.
I had a response ready half way through and you finally took things there in the last two paragraphs.
I used to fantasize about destruction, both societal and my own. When I was hurt I thought about sabotaging my own life. There was something that felt so romantic about watching it all burn.
Once I started to heal from the deep wounds inflicted on me by being forced to sit in a chair for 12+ years, I realized it wasn’t destruction I wanted but rebirth. The destruction was the only space that the desire for rebirth was allowed to express itself because it did not believe in possibilities, and it felt no agency over its own existence.
Now I see possibility in every moment and I no longer wish for destruction in the same way. I won’t lie though, I still love the sight of a good disaster, but I would never desire for death or pain on anyone. I only take joy in the disaster because of its ability to jolt people out of the dream.
Now I pray for chaos that brings minimum suffering and maximum joy
saying x is in control is just a way of avoiding responsibility for one's negativity, a narcissistic way to blame X without taking the blame, but get the credit for informing the boss, the one who can hurt you, and hopefully them because you have sucked up to them, demagogues surf this meanness among us with ease. It is resident among us even without ressentiment and lost entitlement.
Great comment Meika! I hope you liked the post.
Well said Meika. I am guilty of this sometimes, when I sit still its ok. But when I engage with the world it happens sometimes.
I loved this read brother. Nature is such a powerful force yet we think we can simply close the door on it.
Thanks for writing it.
Still pondering the last paragraph, don’t think it’s gonna hit right away but that was good
Fascinating! I love your topic, and yes, I agree the end is already here, but we are too busy in our false reality to notice it.
These images are all extraordinary and your writing is very special. Do you design these to go with the rhetoric? So mysterious.
Yeah :D Im glad you liked it and them! Thanks so much Dwina
There is something disturbing about the fact that, thanks to today's communication technologies, we can follow the chaos and destruction caused by natural disasters in real time. We become morbidly fascinated while others fight for their lives, standing in front of the ruins of their existence. In this, I also recognized a part of myself in what you wrote.
Experiencing in near real time how these people suffered made me so angry, especially seeing how they were left alone despite all the resources available. I was so disgusted by it that I even wrote this short piece about it. https://zeitenwandel.substack.com/p/the-emergency
Thanks for writing this. Subbed.
Fascinating exploration of destruction as a pathway to renewal—thank you! It resonates deeply in this chaotic age, but perhaps the focus shouldn’t be on annihilation but on reconstructing societal frameworks. We might embrace a multiplicity of truths and channel our desire for change into reshaping education, media, and community participation. Rather than letting extremists force their distorted realities, we can create stronger cultural and legal structures that reflect diverse experiences and make their version of 'truth' harder to sustain. If we want renewal, it’s through reinvention, not destruction.
Another very well written piece. So much food for thought from beginning to end, and some wonderful quotes I’ll have to return to later.
Most strikingly was your description of the atmosphere after the hurricane. So beautifully expressive and perfectly articulated. After the storms die down and you scope out the damage, the skies are eerily orange and dark with vibrant flashing colors from blown transformers in every direction. It’s always reminded me of getting off a spaceship in a strange land.
You and your family are safe and dry?
I am always fascinated by the "stillness" that characterises life in the eye of a typhoon. Time looks like a distortion and shows that what we usually call "time" is somehow not perceived in the same way by everyone and every living being (as Jakob von Uexküll suggested in his time).
Love the Baudrillardian take on this.
You might benefit from reading a chapter called The Vision and the Riddle from Thus Spoke Zarathustra if you haven’t already.
That’s the riddle part. The bit that haunts me in the first part is the spider creeping along in the moonlight
Those of you who sail with cunning sails upon undiscovered seas, solve for me the riddle that I saw.
Holingdale is an accomplished poet.
That’s the one. The Vision and the Riddle. I have read it multiple times as it is the best encapsulation of his doctrine of the eternal recurrence, an idea which lures me like a mouse to a snake.
Awesome! I will read it today and maybe try and write a post on it. Do you like Cioran?
Not at all. I just googled him. I’m not sure Nietzsche would approve as he seems to be intellectual heir to Schopenhauer
If you enjoy Nietzsche you will enjoy him!
If you don’t read German, as I don’t, the best translation is Holingdale. You can get the full TSZ as a PDF.
Do you know Cioran?
I always think he is the best translator, what do you think?
I have the Holingdale Translation by Penguin!
If you have ever been through a natural disaster, you will know how the perception of time and reality alter, some people see things in slow motion, some people see things as a cartoon.
When I saw my birth town destroyed, there is a disastrous feeling but at the same time a fascination, a desire to start new, a wonder of what really matters.
Anyways, just read The Horn Gate
Unique style and approach - looking for congruence between seemingly disparate events and pattern matching to create a meta narrative.
I read halfway through then was pulled away. I intend to return. Rich stuff.
This post reminded me of something I read just a few days ago. The relation is...tangential at best, but still, I wonder if this might resonate with you. David Bentley Hart argues that the fall described in Genesis 3 must be understood as having occurred before our universe even existed. It's a radical position within Christian thought to be sure, but one that has always made sense to me (for various reasons I won't get into here). This quote sums up the main ideas at play rather well:
"The fall of rational creation and the conquest of the cosmos by death is something that appears to us nowhere within the course of nature or history; it comes from before and beyond both. We cannot search it out within the closed totality of the damaged world because it belongs to another frame of time, another kind of time, one more real than the time of death. . . . It may seem a fabulous claim that we exist in the long grim aftermath of a primeval catastrophe—that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is a phantom of true time, that we live in an umbratile interval between creation in its fullness and the nothingness from which it was called, and that the universe languishes in bondage to the “powers” and “principalities” of this age, which never cease in their enmity toward the kingdom of God—but it is not a claim that Christians are free to surrender."
This post is not by Hart, but is rather a discussion of his ideas by Jesse Hake. He does link to a chapter from a book Hart wrote, though.
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/a-human-fall-from-out-of-another-kind-of-time/
I had a response ready half way through and you finally took things there in the last two paragraphs.
I used to fantasize about destruction, both societal and my own. When I was hurt I thought about sabotaging my own life. There was something that felt so romantic about watching it all burn.
Once I started to heal from the deep wounds inflicted on me by being forced to sit in a chair for 12+ years, I realized it wasn’t destruction I wanted but rebirth. The destruction was the only space that the desire for rebirth was allowed to express itself because it did not believe in possibilities, and it felt no agency over its own existence.
Now I see possibility in every moment and I no longer wish for destruction in the same way. I won’t lie though, I still love the sight of a good disaster, but I would never desire for death or pain on anyone. I only take joy in the disaster because of its ability to jolt people out of the dream.
Now I pray for chaos that brings minimum suffering and maximum joy