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If you aren't diligently working towards changing something that bothers you, you rescind your right to complain about it. ↗
History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present, an argument between what actually happened, and what is going to happen next. Arguments are important; they create the possibility of changing things. ↗
The secret of surviving housework is simply to do it. Pull the plug on the part of your brain that always wants to negotiate everything. You need to change a diaper, rinse a bottle, clean a spill, fluff a pillow? Consider it done. It's a no-brainer. End of conversation. End of story. Not postponing chores-and not spending any mental energy equivocating, temporizing, or stalling-is actually a lot more restful than worrying about what needs to be done. ↗
Jacopo, while I could still read, during these past months, I read dictionaries, I studied histories of words, to understand what was happening in my body. I studied like a rabbi. Have you ever reflected that the linguistic term `metathesis' is similar to the oncological term `metastasis'? What is the metathesis? Instead of `clasp' one says `claps.' Instead of `beloved' one says `bevoled.' It's the temurah. The dictionary says that metathesis means the transposition or interchange, while metastasis indicates the change and shifting. How stupid dictionaries are! The root is the same. Either it's the verb metatithemi or the verb methistemi. Metatithemi means I interpose, I shift, I transfer, I substitute, I abrogate a law, I change a meaning. And methistemi? It's the same thing: I move, I transform, I transpose, I switch cliches, I take leave of my senses. And as we sought secret meanings beyond the letter, we all took leave of our senses. And so did my cells, obediently, dutifully. That's why I'm dying, Jacopo, and you know it. ↗
VLADIMIR: (after a moment of bewilderment). We'll see when the time comes. (Pause.) I was saying that things have changed here since yesterday. ESTRAGON: Everything oozes. VLADIMIR: Look at the tree. ESTRAGON: It's never the same pus from one second to the next. VLADIMIR: The tree, look at the tree. Estragon looks at the tree. ESTRAGON: Was it not there yesterday? VLADIMIR: Yes of course it was there. Do you not remember? We nearly hanged ourselves from it. But you wouldn't. Do you not remember? ESTRAGON: You dreamt it. VLADIMIR: Is it possible you've forgotten already? ESTRAGON: That's the way I am. Either I forget immediately or I never forget. ↗
A philosophical thought is not supposed to be impervious to all criticism; this is the error Whitehead describes of turning philosophy into geometry, and it is useful primarily as a way of gaining short-term triumphs in personal arguments that no one else cares (or even knows) about anyway. A good philosophical thought will always be subject to criticisms (as Heidegger’s or Whitehead’s best insights all are) but they are of such elegance and depth that they change the terms of debate, and function as a sort of “obligatory passage point” (Latour’s term) in the discussions that follow. Or in other words, the reason Being and Time is still such a classic, with hundreds of thousands or millions of readers almost a century later, is not because Heidegger made “fewer mistakes” than others of his generation. Mistakes need to be cleaned up, but that is not the primary engine of personal or collective intellectual progress. ↗
