Mood is constitutive of reality. How one looks at what exists changes its mode of existence. This is not only to say that one's mood "colors" one's perceptual apprehension of reality, but also that one's mood has a direct affectation on reality itself. To look at something is to change it. And to look at something in a certain way is to affect it in a corresponding way.
Reality is sensitive. To look at it is to come into contact with it; to come into contact with it, to touch it; and to touch it, to cause it to react. Mood is not mere subjectivity, it is constitutive of reality itself. If there were no human beings, mood would still be constitutive of reality. And so, we can see that a radical re-imagining of mood is necessary, for in considering it merely as a part of our inner selves, we have not yet grasped its true meaning.
It is clear that reality may agitate moods within us, but what we are describing is a total reversal of this all-too-common experience. What we speak of is the agitation of mood within reality by us. How is it that reality senses us? How is it that we can say it senses anything at all? Does the world weep when a tragedy occurs? Does it rejoice in triumph? Does it feel anxiety, and does it know pleasure?
Before we can re-appropriate the motion of "mood" into a larger and previously neglected context, we must clarify exactly what it is that we mean by this reality which "has" moods. If it is true that we emotionally affect reality, it is certain that these affectations are limited both in scope and in scale. When we speak of reality having moods, we are not speaking about all of reality, but only a small part.
Man engages with his reality as his reality engages with him. Reality is a network: man dwells in a house which is situated in a town which exists in a county... et cetera, ad infinitum. And so we do not engage the entire world and all of existence when we do what we do. Rather, we encounter only a small part of reality in our worldly doings. I sleep, and in so sleeping, I engage with my environment. I work, and in so working, I engage with my environment.
It is in this way that my environment acquires a mood. My work place acquires a workly mood, my home acquires a homely mood. I cannot think of feeling what I feel at home at work, for the environment has not been established for that purpose. And each of these places constitutes a reality, a world of its own.
And it is for this reason that a place demands to bear a task. If I have always slept in a certain place, that place will make me want to sleep, for it affects me with its own expectations. And if I wish to take that place and use it for something else, I may - but this will only add another level of expectation to that place, without removing the previous level. Locations have moods, and they do not easily give them up.
It is in this way that we may re-imagine habit as something that belongs to a place, rather than a person. To change a habit is not merely to change one's own state of mind, to make a personal decision, or to change one's actions. All this is insufficient to change one's habits, for a person forgets much more easily than a place. Made of stone and brick, concrete and iron, a place remembers all that has been done within it, and its expectations linger without end. To change one's behavior is insufficient. Permanent change is possible only when accompanied by a change in location.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Let me just preface this by saying that you are far too literate for your own good. You have fully developed, lyrically articulated thoughts that are simultaneously approachable and complex. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed.
Anyway, your argument is intriguing. I’ve never assumed mood as a concept existing outside of subjectivity. Granted, I have a hard time appropriating reality as objective in any fashion. Many Kantian ideals have found niches in my epistemological meanderings. Herein lies my philosophical naïveté; I can’t fully grasp an argument that constructs itself upon knowledge a priori.
Your description of man engaging with reality appears to be an account of intentionality. Would it be incorrect to propose that this intentionality seems to delegate the disclosure of meaning, the formation of meaning, and the desire of meaning as ambiguous and insistent activities of consciousness? They are insistent in that they are unstoppable and spontaneous; yet, they are ambiguous in that they preclude any possibility of self unification or closure. For the sake of this postulation, let us assume that the intentionality of consciousness operates in two fashions. First, there is the activity of desiring to bring meaning to the world; of wanting to become an author in the world’s meaning. Secondly, it exists as the freedom of bringing meaning to the world. Each of these intentionalities of freedom can be identified with a mood: the first with a mood of joy, the second with the dual intentionalities of hope and domination. Whether the second intentionality becomes the ground of projects of liberation or exploitation depends on which mood prevails. But now I’ve gone off in a tangentially different direction.
You flatter me, Jessica. I'm glad that you liked it! If you have the time, check over some of the other things I've got on here - comments as intelligent as yours are hard to come by.
I'm glad that I was able to make you think of mood from a different perspective; this is one of the many things that philosophy should do. Nevertheless, I should give credit where credit is due, and point out that much of what I wrote here I borrowed from Heidegger (e.g. "The Being of the There" and "Mood as constitutive of the worldhood of the world"). I'm not sure if he would agree perfectly with what I have written, but luckily he's dead, so no one will know the difference.
Regarding intentionality, you will notice many overlapping influences in what I write. My use of the verb "to engage with" is meant to be an allusion to both Heidegger and Sartre - Heidegger usually talks about "confronting the being of the world", while Sartre uses the French "engagement", which is normally translated as "commitment" in English. To me, neither terms adequately describe the relationship between man and the world - both are too emotionally charged. One only "confronts" one's adversary, and one only "commits" to one's beliefs - on the one hand, the world is too far off, on the other, it is too close. The world is neither near nor far - it is everywhere, and always, and so I prefer the admittedly euphemistic "to engage with".
And now on to your tangent: I would disagree with your appraisal of intentionality and meaning. To get down to the heart of it, it sounds like you are advocating a kind of universal relativism of meaning, saying that the world has only the meaning that we give to it. There is some truth to that, but it is not absolutely true. To a certain extent, meaning is "tacked onto" reality, which would otherwise be meaningless. But, I would say that there is also meaning inherent to the world itself. To take a very simple example, if you stub your toe, it hurts no matter how you think of it. And so there is an objective limit to the question of relativity, that is to say - a ground of meaning within the world itself that may not be unearthed. I don't know whether I would call that "a priori" or not, but there you go, that's my nickel.
Kelly, I will take this moment to tell you to tell you to play a video game. It ins't a regular one it's sort of an art piece in video game form. It relates to this post so well that there is no good way for me to summarize it. If you don't try it you'll regret it, the game conveys it's meaning as well as a good book.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5139273/The_Void_[English][PCDVD]
Post a Comment