thought is mist, not clarity

Uncategorized March 30, 2015

His brother used to say that thought is always of the heights, Wittgenstein says. Of the mountains. The thinker must soar above everything. Close to the truth. Close to eternal things.

His brother dreamt of a celestial logic, Wittgenstein says. A system of logic that blazed in the sky. A logical system at one with the order of things, that might be divined in the order of things. A logic that God Himself must have studied, before embarking on the Creation.

It is a terrible thing for the thinker to be sent down from the heights, his brother told him – to be forced to return to the world.

But what if thought is low, and not high?, Wittgenstein says. What if the thinker’s place is below things, or with things, rather than above it all?

What if to think is to sink, not to rise?, Wittgenstein stays. What if thinking is falling, failing, defeat? What if thought is the eclipse, not the sun? What if thought is mist, not clarity? What if thought is getting lost, not discovering? What if thought is waylessness, and not the way?

Wittgenstein Jr., Lars Iyer (149)