indeterminate penumbral region between things

[light gray = googles defn (ha) of each word before noting scott thompson’s writings on ‘what I’ve been calling the indeterminate penumbral region between things – the ‘heavenly transitions’ (Z20)‘]

guessing z = Zhuangzi but not sure of where.. need a bibliography for his emails.. ha

indeterminate – not known, established, defined

penumbral – partially shaded shadow cast by opaque (not transparent) object

region – area, division, having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries

via scott on bakhtin:

only an indeterminate penumbral region where it’s not always possible to say whether something is this or that (it could be not quite this or not quite that, or both simultaneously, although of course at some point clearly the sapling does become a tree), and therefore there can be no absolute judgments, standards, norms, or criteria for resolving disputes, no fixed meanings, and no absolute congruence with heaven (tian) to justify an externally imposed ritual propriety (li). 

huge.. and to me.. to hasten the ‘transition’.. to get back/to this regionless/borderless ‘region’.. we need tech w/o judgment (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to help ‘transition’/detox leap us.. (to me.. the legit thing we could be using tech for.. the thing it can do – nonjudgment – that we can’t – at least not as we are currently.. ie: whales in sea world)

in the Zhuangzi the possibility of equality, freedom, growth, life, creativity, new learning, experimentation, agreement, pluralism, and differentiation seems to emerge from the indeterminate penumbral region between things – their ‘heavenly transitions’ (Z20)

Bakhtin says the feast is ‘a primary form of human culture’ (RW9) that is ‘always related to time’ (RW9) and ‘the natural (cosmic) cycle’ (RW9) – ‘carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change, and renewal’ (RW10) – does that mean rather than marking something ‘stable, unchanging, perennial’ (RW9) – this not that – it marks something more like what I’ve been calling the indeterminate penumbral region between things – the ‘heavenly transitions’ (Z20) – that can lead to ‘moments of death and revival, of change and renewal’ as well as ‘moments of crisis, of breaking points in the cycle of nature or in the life of society and man’ (RW9)?

to me.. need a sabbatical ish transition

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