1.25.2011

What are you an agent for?

The human being — its body but also its operations — is a host for nonhuman becomings: we are all run through with moments of this and that, river and sun, storm and tree, rock and cloud. We are run through with affective trajectories, invisible but palpable forces that crisscross and constitute the world.

We are, each of us, nodes within this symphony of the cosmos, turning with its relentless, infinitely variegated rhythms — planets and suns and rocks all twirling in and around each other, attracting each other, repelling each other, colliding with each other. And then, on a smaller scale, on a more local scale, here we are: people and machines and cars and noises and smells and coffee cups twirling in and around each other, attracting each other, repelling each other, colliding with each other.

The global turning and the local turning are, of course, one cosmic turning.

The human host — its physical constitution, its intelligence — has its potential and limits. Each host has its own potential and limits. But there are various ways that a specific human host can operate in the grand cosmic machinery; each host can operate in — tolerate — any number of constellation of forces.

The question for each of us — the question of the human — is this: What cosmic forces run through your machine? How do you inflect them? How might you use this same machinery to operate with a different calculus of cosmic forces?

It is not our job to resist the forces of inhumanity. Inhumanity pervades us, and this is good and necessary. The question is: Which inhuman forces does your machinery accommodate?

In other words, who do you work for? What are you an agent for? What forces do you impel, propel, sustain? What world do you create?

6 comments:

what the Tee Vee taught said...

This blog is alive and — if not "well" (I think it is well) then at least — busy. You're ostensibly asking a question in one moment, one space... and then — by some weird and brilliant magic — answering them, sort of... maybe... I guess so, in the exact same space.

I mean, it's just fucking rich. That's it. Like a fuckin' coq au van with really tight morels... so much happening. The asking is, just fucking IS... the answer. The asking is the answer. It self-fulfills. Fucking awesome.

Daniel Coffeen said...

I'm a sprinter: I explode and then rest. Recently, I've been sprinting, as it were. And I love using this blog as a way to make sense of the things I'm thinking: live thought, I hope.

dustygravel said...

cosmology: I'm at this vary moment watching between the folds, a documentary on the art/science of origami, and the words of Gilles deleuze are poring through my brain(holy shit that's a plain of imminence). Having fallowed your blog for some time and, knowing that you are a creative reader of the man I think it be fun to hear what you Mr.Coffeen would make of this film.

Daniel Coffeen said...

@Dusty: I use the figure of origami all the time — perhaps too often. So I will definitely check out said film....thanks.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

Quin said...

I'm really not the type who puts inspirational quotes up on my wall. But I read your post shortly before bed last night, and felt suddenly moved to write "What are you an agent for?" in big black marker letters on a piece of paper and stick it on the wall. So I did. Then I went to sleep.

I gotta say, so far this has been a very good day. Sometimes you just hear the right words at the right time.

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