On revision
I hardly ever edit my own journal entries, because sort of the whole point seems to be taking time to just write what you can on to the page and not to look back all that much. It seems rather different to edit, or to look at the writing with the editorial eye that might be needed to imagine that the writing is then going to be read by someone other than yourself. After all, there needs to be space both for the writing that’s direct from the heart, that goes unheeded to the page without a second thought, and then there’s the writing that swirls in editorial process long enough that it may become something more than its first blush. Something refined. But I’m not sure that, when thinking in public, one needs to aim for the refined output.
Instead, it’s rather a place where the writing is itself doing the work of giving form to a direction. That by writing here, my ideas are themselves taking shape rather than trying to communicate predetermined forms, the writing is going to be doing the work of creating its own container within which thought and expression then can occur. So that’s to say, forgive me dear reader, if this all comes off as a rather verbose and confusing exercise. Perhaps the insight that you’re looking for, if that’s indeed what brings you here, will be clearly delineated and directed on to topic-specific pages that can hold more meaning than the individual journal entries. Here, in these journals, is where I do the work. It’s where I take the time to spell out directly what’s troubling me, so that I can begin to come to some conclusions as to how this project is going to function. Perhaps even the disclosure of these “raw,” wandering ponderings will help form a picture of what this project is even to you, as they are to me. Perhaps you’ll see here where the work begins and ends, so that when the revised sections come to light, and there is some greater clarity about the nature of the constellations then they will themselves rest on the work that’s being done on these dated pages.
Perhaps what’s most strange about this process is that doing it does give me greater clarity about the kind of writing that will occupy this project as a whole. That as I go deeper into my readings and forming of constellations that this will reveal that there was a methodology of constellations that is itself taking shape that will give way to a greater topology of the structure.
The understanding here is that the journal pages, the ones with dates in the title, like this (2024-01-13) and yesterday’s (2024-01-12) will give way to a structured approach and deepened understanding of how I’m going to work through the process of writing, collecting, and play. That itself is through these writings that I can establish a what the wider field of action is and therefore how to occupy this room for play.
The act of writing takes many forms. Traveling: “fusing enjoyment with criticism.” Writing, paired with the image, can itself become a kind of “sensory knowledge,” that is drawing on the awareness that “aesthetics is the body’s form of critical cognition, and this sensory knowledge can and should be used politically.” (85, Seeing <—> Making Room for Thought). There is writing as the scaffold, a means of traveling into higher ontological positions through the cultivation of successive written works. There’s writing for exposition, voyeurism, and other intersubjective acts may themselves be revealed through the project. Indeed, by drawing on the level of intersubjectivity, there is the ask of taking upon us abstractions. But part of the fun of writing, and to even play with neologisms, is going to be that by creating new language we can also access new territories, or even old, well-explored ones, by new means. There are latent potentials embedded within language, even as a medium we’re so deeply familiar with, to expand on it further and deeper and to allow it to construct itself into something yet more refined, or in the very least, with ever greater analytical purchase.
Which is all to say that in the space for play is itself an opportunity to play with language. To “show your work” so to speak by working through the arguments in real time and allowing for only light revision where is needed or at least where brings clarity. I hope you understand that with this comes a degree of earnestness to how I pursue this inquiry. That I can trust to show you how I’m thinking through these questions, and that there isn’t the exact pretense that this should be the last word at any moment, but if anything, that the documents are themselves at all times midway-points to a process. Crumbs that litter the trail.
So where are we steering this ship towards? Right now it’s in pursuit of exploring the field of action and thus establishing this practice as a space for play. There are then the longer standing threads of my own approach to inquiry that I wish to weave into this space. Some of them are deeply personal, such as inquiring into my values and continuing to give shape to them within the scope of this semi-public project may ask them to take yet another form than they have thus far. There are theoretical strands that I’ve been developing in private that I may wish to bring in as well. These stem from deeper personal inquiries I’ve made largely separate from the philosophical discourse of the day, but I’m now seeing the need to pull into discourse to the extent that I can, so that the work itself can be brought into the world and situated against others’ inquiries. It’s a vague way of saying that I have things I’ve been thinking about, writing about, personally, that I’d like to begin to write about in this more semi-public capacity.
I imagine that all together this will give form to a corpus of writing that is at times personal and other times a kind of wily intellectualism that may seem anything but. For me inquiry is always a personal act. It’s a means of bringing a personal light to some darkened nook, if not purely for personal need, then to bring something back which can lend light to others’ own personal investigations. I find myself, fortunately, in communities of thinkers who appear to be quite developed in how they advance their own personal inquiries. I often hear of it in the past and active tenses, because when we are catching up with one another there’s always some background investigation at work. Even those I know more parasocially who are pursuing a similar approach are signalling, frequently enough, the occurrence of some investigation.
So in other words, consider this web of johan itself a contribution to an active pursuit of personal investigations. It’s a way of looking closer at the self, the world, the relationships, and manifold constellations that take shape once one begins to ask questions and sustained, active reflection. It’s a reflection on a particular spatiotemporal moment that’s at once deeply personal and also inviting for dialogue. Your participation, your letters, your reflections and responses, are, I hope, what will help grow and sustain this practice in a way that a closed journal would not. There is an opportunity here, that we create together, to widen the space for play into a shared subjectivity and collective incitement: bring something, an image, a poem, a question, or even a response to what you encounter within the constellations. Your reactions, as they are, will themselves shape the moment of encounter that this journal seeks to reflect and, therefore, become a part of the work.
So consider your own participation in this space for play—your dialogue with me, or even with other readers, will help grow the field of action of this project and expand what it renders possible.
From theory to action:
This is leading me to realize I should have a page called something like Getting Involved. It could say something like:
Hello Dear,
Welcome to Constellations by Johan.
This is an alive, web-based experiment. Constellations is a site of play and unlimited inquiry. It’s a record of thought, actively updated, that is itself an invitation for your participation. Your engagement with the constellations project will become part of the contextual subject that it seeks to respond towards. That’s to say, how you use this site as a prompt to your play will itself expand upon how this project acts as a room for play (spielraum).
As the project is in its earliest stages, it remains wide open for you to get involved. Send me material—visual, acoustic, written, interactive—or even use this project as a prompt to your own practice. Sending in questions prompted by this work is the highest form of flattery short of imitation. At this stage in the process, whatever you send in will find its way back on to this project (unless you ask that it not).
Always, Johan
Well, why not host it at the index page instead and add a separate getting involved page.