As inauguration, here are some thoughts I had recently.
We live in the order-lessness of a totalizing order, where nothing has its place because everything’s place is determined. There is a different order, where everything takes its place. This authority rests with neither man nor God.
People who begin to see are not becoming aware of the situation, they are becoming the situation.
Philosophy at the university means arguing and reasoning. It’s like fighting, going somewhere to prove yourself. That’s what we call it, defending your position.
When you hit up against given reality, the brute circumstances of your life, if you’ve dug deep enough to have finally struck the surface, you can no longer provide explanations. A person who manages to be the whole, she can only, as they taught us in elementary school, when we were learning to write — show… not tell.
Today the philosophy student discusses in seminar the destiny of humankind, and in the evenings must answer to, “So what are you going to do with that after you study?” Because the philosophy student has no self-respect, she develops an attitude of revenge toward the public.
People are dying for connection. In fact, intimacy happens so quickly, gets so deep, that people don’t know how to handle it. For the sake of this intimacy, we must learn to let each other be.