I had a few days revisiting William Burroughs - I was re reading The Western Lands in one of those flurries of loosely connected mental wanderings along with stabs through the Nova Trilogy- I'm bouncing off his idea of language being a virus which appeals to me a lot. People always bang on about 'thinking outside of the box' but I'm becoming convinced thinking is the box. Language, along with the tyranny of 'clock time' seem to me to be the two prisons we are stuck in the most.
It is very interesting, yes. Along with Burroughs I have a passing interest in the metaphysics in Casteneda's work - let's call them novels - although they're not quite that they do read like that. Disgraced by the academic community for basically telling a few whopping porkies Castaneda is true to the shamanic trickster trope. It's a bit sad that he has been jumped on by the new agers as his ideas always seemed to be more sophisticated than the audience he actually has. But I am impressed by his Tonal/Nagual ideas because there seems to be a truth there. When I became aware of my hands during lucid dreaming, like he recommends I decided either he was onto something or my subcounscious mind has a really sarcastic sense of humour (it does - but more on that later) and it was mocking me hilariously. Now maybe Don Carlos stole quite a lot from Burroughs, certainly his idea expounded in his later books that our language based selves are 'a foreign installation' echoes Burroughs Virus. It's interesting stuff. So my Thought for the Day (I'm sure you remember that BBC radio programme?) is: Does the unconscious borrow from the language of the language based conscious self from time to time, to play tricks and to jokes?
I had a few days revisiting William Burroughs - I was re reading The Western Lands in one of those flurries of loosely connected mental wanderings along with stabs through the Nova Trilogy- I'm bouncing off his idea of language being a virus which appeals to me a lot. People always bang on about 'thinking outside of the box' but I'm becoming convinced thinking is the box. Language, along with the tyranny of 'clock time' seem to me to be the two prisons we are stuck in the most.
That last trilogy is hugely underrated compared with the books everyone knows…
It’s interesting from the point of view of his idea of “ language as a virus” that the unconscious does not speak any language at all.
It is very interesting, yes. Along with Burroughs I have a passing interest in the metaphysics in Casteneda's work - let's call them novels - although they're not quite that they do read like that. Disgraced by the academic community for basically telling a few whopping porkies Castaneda is true to the shamanic trickster trope. It's a bit sad that he has been jumped on by the new agers as his ideas always seemed to be more sophisticated than the audience he actually has. But I am impressed by his Tonal/Nagual ideas because there seems to be a truth there. When I became aware of my hands during lucid dreaming, like he recommends I decided either he was onto something or my subcounscious mind has a really sarcastic sense of humour (it does - but more on that later) and it was mocking me hilariously. Now maybe Don Carlos stole quite a lot from Burroughs, certainly his idea expounded in his later books that our language based selves are 'a foreign installation' echoes Burroughs Virus. It's interesting stuff. So my Thought for the Day (I'm sure you remember that BBC radio programme?) is: Does the unconscious borrow from the language of the language based conscious self from time to time, to play tricks and to jokes?
mboi
https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-236574/