[Suggested listening while reading this piece: A Winged Victory for the Sullen, start at 39 mins 1 second]
Iterative processes of fracture; is walking, is speaking, is contemplation.
Split pre-birth in a chromosome chain, split post-birth from the mother, split post-adolescence from maternal ideologies, split at teenhood from innocence, split at adulthood from false conceptions of humanity. And, into the jungle.
//
‘Why is he crying’ I asked the nurse.
‘Oh this is just the cry for the woe of being born. For the pain of existing’.
He cries and fresh-born voices from across the corridor rise in empathic accord, eerie in mutual mourning.
Iterative processes of fracture; is reading, is introducing, is paraphrasing.
Words stored in archival sensibilities of what was once said, or where ideas wounded us most in their manifestations. Sentences bound for incision, for ego-fed triumph, to oust arguments, to win debates, to regain validation in some internal sense of intellect. The point divides and becomes conquered, by the semblance of the point, by the imagined medallions of ownership of intellect and taming an idea with parameters of masquerading reason. We forget the power of words and make idols of those who conduct them.
//
…
Is ideas shattered by truisms.
Is faith fallen to logic.
Is swells of paradigmatic navigations overwhelming minds seeking directions.
Is learned ideologies innately unable to absorb foundation-shifting informations.
Is identity’s fickle flirtation between erudition and foolery.
Is salvation from immoveable places before.
Is asking and seeing.
Iterative processes of fracture; is dressing, is using forks and knives, is first-world education.
Civilised I learn and cut my hair in particular ways. Stop biting your nails, don’t hunch and don’t forget to say please. Thank you. What is your mother-tongue? You speak so well. Where do you come from? Whereabouts do you live? Do you go back often? Oh, you weren’t born there. New rights and agencies learned turn against ancestries and the seeds split once more, and the tree breaks or bends into a sorrowful display of itself. Biodiversity supports some foreign flora. Fauna may mutate, or upset the equilibrium of the surrounding ecosystem. Homelands dig holes for other imports now prized.
//
You would think I was a wealthy white woman,
Afraid of the natives upon my travels.
But no,
I am simply self-loathing,
And have spent too much time judged/ judging (myself)
For all the Motherland I am not
And have spent too much time groomed to carry myself as if,
I know better and am generally
Converted.
/
If I see myself as they do
(I imagine)
I hate myself.
Because I became one of Them formerly the Other.
Iterative processes of fracture; is the ecological body completing itself in relation to the dysfunction of megacities. The body, as a system, is a circuitry aiming to complete itself in relation to its environment*. My body, our bodies massing en heave in cityscapes and linear time parameters of working life, adapt to the city as an organism. My circuitry seeks relation to the pipes and clutter, to the punctuality and incivility, to the noise and the smell and the sound and the effuse. My circuitry breaks down and I wonder about how much nails hurt when they are bitten passed their whites.
…
[Sitting down for long periods of time shortens our lives].
Iterative processes of fracture; is the inability to satiate purpose in ones actions.
Dynamics of productivity and capitalism rendering uselessness upon lack of money-earning identity. What do you do? How do you contribute to society? What are you? Indecision breeds identity parenthesis. Useless ascetics wander in the margins seeking contracts and consultations and adjusting hairs and eyes in mirrors, seeking reconciliation to the former useful self. Where to for purpose? Jungian archetypes are now marred in Temazepam and double-shot happy hours or deep fried to quench mineral deficiency. The Madonna is busy right now, she’ll call you back. But never fear, purposes are a dime a dozen. See embossed business cards for future options. In the mean time: try to raise your child-contribute to your community-be good to your parents-pay your taxes-don’t live off welfare-be safe-be healthy-buy a house-stay connected-do your best-prepare for ageing.
Iterative processes of fracture; is when God is with you and then isn’t.
You go to sleep. You wake. You end. You begin again.
//
You fracture.
You scar.
You thicken.
You die.
Iterative processes of fracture:
You live
/lived.
* Theory articulated by David Abrams.
NITHYA IYER 