In My Room

[Anonymouse]

I'm sitting here typing my mid-term paper on the Modern Middle East, a history course steeped heavily in poststructuralism, and Foucault, I can't help but feel it in my room. Why am I here now? I have been reading and typing for two days. I am sitting here writing, typing, reading, for what? So that one day I will be someone who is paid to think. Burry yourself in the thoughts and the text of Microsoft Word, as that will be the glue that binds you together the language of discourse for the day.

These are my thoughts as I sit here in my room which is a mess, books and notebooks and papers all over. Computer always on. Bed unmade, shoes displaced. Lamp lit because of the gloomy day. And me sitting amid all this. That is poststructuralism. Without it I have no meaning. My room is a system, and everything in it has a word, and is an equation and I'm the variable. The only thing tying us is language to describe.

No single element in this system has a meaning aside from structural relations to one another. To my computer I am the user, as far as my bed is concerned about me, I just sleep on it, to my chair, I just sit on it, to my shoes they only know me as feet because I wear them, to my lamp I am just something that receives light. The meaning of me changes constantly. Without these I would have no meaning. Likewise, history would have no meaning. Armenia would have no meaning without its relations to its neighbors.

There is a language for each process and thing. The meaning of me was different at 7:00 am when I was on my bed so was the language. The meaning of Armenia was different in 900 A.D. The meaning of me is different now at 4:00 pm as I am typing this on my chair. The meaning of Armenia is different now in 2005 A.D. Me and Armenia are in an eternal tango in a subject object relationship.

Everywhere Sartre's existentialism discovered freedom, Foucault found unconscious forces and logical structures. Everywhere history speaks of change and freedom, it is merely a shifting of language of power relations. In my room everything has meaning only in relation to each other, including me. Without these relationships I am a blur.

[loseyourname]

In My Room is a very good song by the Beach Boys. You should listen to it. Don't read Foucault; it's all rhetoric.

[Anonymouse]

In My Room is a very good song by the Beach Boys. You should listen to it. Don't read Foucault; it's all rhetoric.

Too late, I already have. It was assigned for class last quarter, and my professor on this particular class draws heavily from it.

[Siamanto]

I'm sitting here typing my mid-term paper on the Modern Middle East, a history course steeped heavily in poststructuralism, and Foucault, I can't help but feel it in my room. Why am I here now? I have been reading and typing for two days. I am sitting here writing, typing, reading, for what? So that one day I will be someone who is paid to think. Burry yourself in the thoughts and the text of Microsoft Word, as that will be the glue that binds you together the language of discourse for the day.

I can relate to your "questioning." Also, it is amazing when you are paid decent money for something you enjoy(ed) doing and are used to do for free. Of course, the "professional constraints" may - and often do - influence your thinking, but you can think of it as as way of "financing" the act - your act (very existentialist!) - of thinking/creating! It's up to you to stay as independent as possible!

These are my thoughts as I sit here in my room which is a mess, books and notebooks and papers all over. Computer always on. Bed unmade, shoes displaced. Lamp lit because of the gloomy day. And me sitting amid all this.

What mess?

That is poststructuralism. Without it I have no meaning. My room is a system, and everything in it has a word, and is an equation and I'm the variable. The only thing tying us is language to describe.
No single element in this system has a meaning aside from structural relations to one another. To my computer I am the user, as far as my bed is concerned about me, I just sleep on it, to my chair, I just sit on it, to my shoes they only know me as feet because I wear them, to my lamp I am just something that receives light. The meaning of me changes constantly. Without these I would have no meaning. Likewise, history would have no meaning. Armenia would have no meaning without its relations to its neighbors.

Descartes said: "I think therefore I am."
I said: "You touch me therefore we are."

[By the way, would that qualify as a pick-up line? :]

There is a language for each process and thing. The meaning of me was different at 7:00 am when I was on my bed so was the language. The meaning of Armenia was different in 900 A.D. The meaning of me is different now at 4:00 pm as I am typing this on my chair. The meaning of Armenia is different now in 2005 A.D. Me and Armenia are in an eternal tango in a subject object relationship.

That reminds me of Heraxxxxe reviewed through late 19th early 20th century Philosophy - Hegel to Heidegger.

[Anonymouse]

I can relate to your "questioning." Also, it is amazing when you are paid decent money for something you enjoy(ed) doing and are used to do for free. Of course, the "professional constraints" may - and often do - influence your thinking, but you can think of it as as way of "financing" the act - your act (very existentialist!) - of thinking/creating! It's up to you to stay as independent as possible!


What mess?

Descartes said: "I think therefore I am."
I said: "You touch me therefore we are."

[By the way, would that qualify as a pick-up line? :]

That reminds me of Heraxxxxe reviewed through late 19th early 20th century Philosophy - Hegel to Heidegger.

I have briefly flirted with Heidegger's existential phenomenology but it's to be left for after school. Sartre and his literature of great circumstances was quite something. But then again I have always been of the persuasion that existentialism is more of a mood than an actual doctrine of philosophy and this is best exemplified in Sartre's play No Exit. I'm reminded of that quote by Andre Malraux whom Sartre admired, "...to search for a solution knowing the problem is insoluble..to write in a professional conviction knowing that ones work has no importance..." And one can see that tinge of existential mood.

[Anonymouse]

I think of Sartre's quote that we are "condemned to be free, even if we don't want to be", as I sit here with my slippers (Nike slippers, a beautiful creation of some existential Chinese laborer).

[Siamanto]

I have briefly flirted with Heidegger's existential phenomenology but it's to be left for after school. Sartre and his literature of great circumstances was quite something. But then again I have always been of the persuasion that existentialism is more of a mood than an actual doctrine of philosophy and this is best exemplified in Sartre's play No Exit. I'm reminded of that quote by Andre Malraux whom Sartre admired, "...to search for a solution knowing the problem is insoluble..to write in a professional conviction knowing that ones work has no importance..." And one can see that tinge of existential mood.

For some reason, I always had an obvious aversion towards Sartre. I still find him to be morose. I can deal with the "situationism" of Sartre - or I act therefore I am. Among existentialists, I prefer Camus, St-Exupery and Kierkegaard. As Nietzsche said: "My God should be a dancer" and "My Philosophy should be sunny." (For the latter - maybe - not in so many words! )

As for Malraux's concept of "searching for a solution," that is very much what Heidegger called "questioning."
(By the way, that is what I meant by "questioning" in my previous post.)

[thedebutante]

how do you have aversions TOWARD something? shouldnt it be repelling?

[Anonymouse]

She and I were in my room and thus our meaning was defined by each others presence in my room.

[thedebutante]

She and I were in my room and thus our meaning was defined by each others presence in my room.

liar, i was never in your room