In breaking from thick forest into an unexpected clearing, one is sometimes stunned by the brightness…  Each of the following vignettes are attempts to capture something of that sudden emergence into a metaphorical ‘clearing’. Of varying length and on a variety of topics–– each involves some unexpected awareness.

I make no pretence of ever having penetrated the density of Martin Heidegger, but from middle years I have found intriguing his expression ‘unconcealing’ [from the Greek ‘alêtheia’].

As I roughly understand it, what is ‘unconcealed’ is not like a sudden ‘epiphany’. It way be sudden–– but is only revealed through careful mirror-reflecting-mirror-like questioning.

Like the clearing in the forest, it is already present before its disclosure. The fleeting awareness of the unexpectedly disclosed can be as jarring as catching a sniff of one’s mortality…

I acknowledge that the ideas of Heidegger have been much abused in the realm of contemporary social science. I assure that none of these vignettes bears any trace of the (usually insufferable) post-modernist style.

These pieces, drawn from over three decades, are presented in reverse chronological order. 

–FWT (lefthook51)

May 2021

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