"He did his best at a venture."
"He did his best at a venture."
Henry James, The Madonna of the Future
Human Becomings-I know, I know, in a word: trite.
But I couldn't quite figure out how to refer to myself. I could have just tried to sound perhaps even more clever with homo sapien and been satisfied with it....because it sounds scientific and is much more neutral than big, significant terms such as "human being" or "human becoming". But it's precisely the biotic nature of the term that deterred me from employing it. And although the cute term "human becoming" may seem trite and sappy to some, and although I would have to agree with them, I kind of believe in it at the same time as not believing in it.
What is the self? Are we becomings or beings? Are we complex indefinable creatures, dynamic and constantly creative, never at rest, "always to be blessed", but never experiencing self understanding and actualization at any single point in one's personal historical evolution? Or indeed is there meaning to the momentary, fleeting self experience, with all its finitude and grandeur? Is the me of here and now genuine, impacting, significant, real.
And the truth is we are both beings and becomings, and either term alone would seem trite as well as incomplete. And any sceintific term would not capture the essence of this tension, of this lack of order and objectivity. We are creatures of experience, of many layers that are made up of more than just cells (although we are those as well :) ).
So I guess that is the point of this dialogue. A discussion of the tensions, complexities and pleasures of being human. A mixed expression of both the spontaneous and the pensive, of the settled and the unsettled self, of questions and clarity, of small points and monumental ideas, of negation and redemption, of ourselves as probing, seeking, thinking individuals, and lazy, hellinistic, selfish beings, and of course, just as ourselves.
The worth and futility of life co-exist as a dual reality. Most importantly and perhaps most significantly, we must aim as members of the human race to do our own best at a venture.
Henry James, The Madonna of the Future
Human Becomings-I know, I know, in a word: trite.
But I couldn't quite figure out how to refer to myself. I could have just tried to sound perhaps even more clever with homo sapien and been satisfied with it....because it sounds scientific and is much more neutral than big, significant terms such as "human being" or "human becoming". But it's precisely the biotic nature of the term that deterred me from employing it. And although the cute term "human becoming" may seem trite and sappy to some, and although I would have to agree with them, I kind of believe in it at the same time as not believing in it.
What is the self? Are we becomings or beings? Are we complex indefinable creatures, dynamic and constantly creative, never at rest, "always to be blessed", but never experiencing self understanding and actualization at any single point in one's personal historical evolution? Or indeed is there meaning to the momentary, fleeting self experience, with all its finitude and grandeur? Is the me of here and now genuine, impacting, significant, real.
And the truth is we are both beings and becomings, and either term alone would seem trite as well as incomplete. And any sceintific term would not capture the essence of this tension, of this lack of order and objectivity. We are creatures of experience, of many layers that are made up of more than just cells (although we are those as well :) ).
So I guess that is the point of this dialogue. A discussion of the tensions, complexities and pleasures of being human. A mixed expression of both the spontaneous and the pensive, of the settled and the unsettled self, of questions and clarity, of small points and monumental ideas, of negation and redemption, of ourselves as probing, seeking, thinking individuals, and lazy, hellinistic, selfish beings, and of course, just as ourselves.
The worth and futility of life co-exist as a dual reality. Most importantly and perhaps most significantly, we must aim as members of the human race to do our own best at a venture.
posted by shira at 9:44 PM
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