PLAY
I’m watching some 5 eight-year-old kids jumping on the trampoline and taking some wild swims into the stone potholes, Jettegrytene, a miraculous place that has the smoothest deep stone formations filled with water into which you can dive. I don’t remember playing like that. When I was 8, if I played, I played chess, or pretended to be Kafka’s and Nietzsche’s ghost writer. This phase was over by the time I was 10 and got into the musketeers. But the first two loves have not been forgotten. I keep returning to them. The other game I was good at when I was 8 was judging. Every time a new person came to visit, upon his departure, my mother wanted to know what I really thought. I would give either a thumb up or a thumb down. Mother thought that my judgement was infallible. She also thought that it was pretty good for an eight-year-old to spot the rotten kinds, when everybody else would otherwise be infatuated. Those close to us were incredulous at my childish analysis, but when I would always be proven correct, glorification came. But I didn’t care. I had other things on my mind. Now I forget what.
My best friend wrote me a comment on my last post in this string of Norway visual logs. He wrote: “Crucifixion? Good.” But I know where this comes from. He has just eloped with my sister, who lives her life according to The Life of Brian, so he has no choice but to follow. Especially now that he has a chance, to follow, that is. Finally. He has been waiting 8 years for her to make up her mind and come to Denmark. Eight years! I never thought such resilience was possible. Especially since during all that time they had not been communicating. But there you have it. He just decided 8 years ago that he loved her, and as far as he was concerned, that was all he needed to know. Of course, my sister also knew. That he was waiting. This knowledge made her close her eyes to reality but not to her memory. So, now, by a strange reversal, memory became reality. By Jove, some people are strange! Who do we sacrifice ourselves for, and what? Apart from crucifixion, I’m thinking of this: “who” and “what,” taking my cue from Derrida. In his later thinking he was troubled by the significance of these words. He said that, finally, when it all comes down to it, after a long life of philosophising, what he would really have liked to know about philosophers is “what” they really thought, and “who” they had sex with. Indeed. How much do we know about whom Plato was banging, not to mention “what” he stole from Socrates and others? I’m thinking about what kind of action waiting is, or reading Nietzsche when you’re eight, or watching meteorites fall from the sky. Are our desires incalculably pointless? Or is there more? Tomorrow I’ll go jumping on an inflated balloon. I’m curious to see what ideas I’ll get.
My best friend wrote me a comment on my last post in this string of Norway visual logs. He wrote: “Crucifixion? Good.” But I know where this comes from. He has just eloped with my sister, who lives her life according to The Life of Brian, so he has no choice but to follow. Especially now that he has a chance, to follow, that is. Finally. He has been waiting 8 years for her to make up her mind and come to Denmark. Eight years! I never thought such resilience was possible. Especially since during all that time they had not been communicating. But there you have it. He just decided 8 years ago that he loved her, and as far as he was concerned, that was all he needed to know. Of course, my sister also knew. That he was waiting. This knowledge made her close her eyes to reality but not to her memory. So, now, by a strange reversal, memory became reality. By Jove, some people are strange! Who do we sacrifice ourselves for, and what? Apart from crucifixion, I’m thinking of this: “who” and “what,” taking my cue from Derrida. In his later thinking he was troubled by the significance of these words. He said that, finally, when it all comes down to it, after a long life of philosophising, what he would really have liked to know about philosophers is “what” they really thought, and “who” they had sex with. Indeed. How much do we know about whom Plato was banging, not to mention “what” he stole from Socrates and others? I’m thinking about what kind of action waiting is, or reading Nietzsche when you’re eight, or watching meteorites fall from the sky. Are our desires incalculably pointless? Or is there more? Tomorrow I’ll go jumping on an inflated balloon. I’m curious to see what ideas I’ll get.
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