Ouroboros anew

mgraym (29)in #philosophy • 6 years ago (edited)

This book was to be first written and, many times, rewritten in thought. Yet the ground where it was founded poses the same question:

Why to do it?

Why to bother?

In my case, the answer accompanies me for longer than the evoked question; a "not to", written on a small black notebook, more than thirteen years ago:

October 2005.

Why even to utter a word in a language that will be forgotten.

The old Greek idea of achieving immortality through deeds wasn't good enough. On the search of immortality, many confuse it with longevity: the longer you live does not bring you any closer to forever. Yet before I could tell how a reason "not to" write became a book, the process of putting it all on paper brings an even more imminent question:

Where to start?

The problem:

Is there even a beginning to start with?

I feel like trying to enter a closed circle in a perpetual motion cycle.

The Ouroboros: taken from Synosius 1478, a compendium of alchemical texts, by Theodoros Pelecanos c. 15th century AD.

Here we meet Ouroboros. If we focus on its head eating its tail, we are looking at a beginning and an end, yet we don't face the Endless Dragon itself. To be able to distinguish its head from tail we put it in static, we take its most important trait: eternal motion.

From them on, Ouroboros is just a concept, an abstraction frozen in time. That is the price we pay to bring it to here and now. That same is the process condensing this book into paper. To establish a beginning and end to it, is the necessary immolation to forge it into steel. You sacrifice wholeness, complexity, motion and dynamics hopping that latter it will serve as a concrete bridge back to the eternal. A beacon on rock to guide those up for the journey.

This book, like Ouroboros, has its tail returning into its mouth in an endless mangle. As you reach the end of it, you are ready to begin.

#writing #freewrite #art #book