‘Totality and Infinity’ is a book. Destroy the book and it persists nonetheless. That happens to be the case with everything… d’oh…
‘Totality and Infinity’ is not a book… about alterity or the Alter or the alterity of the Alter. If one capably destroyed the Alter and with it all alterity, the subject of ‘Totality and Infinity’ would remain perfectly relevant, valid and vital… immaculately otherwise? It is because it is a book that in its argumentation specifically invokes the otherwise pseudonymously, under the guise of the Alter, that the discussion about the impotence inherent in destruction is within its pages more tangibly felt. After all, we are hypothetically discussing the destruction of anything other, of everything apart oneself. Everything now destroyed, one recites to oneself the holy verses inscribed within that book, now addressed to a dark, vacuous universe… to all that which is in fact otherwise.
‘Totality and Infinity’ is a book. Essentially it is memory itself that is plastered all over the pages contained between its cover. Let me explain better: if the recipe of our famous local dish, braġioli, had to disappear, for however temporarily that might be, the world would still move on. Clearly, the world does not fatally and catastrophically depend on our braġioli. Yes, indeed, the same could be said about the destruction of the Alter… d’oh…
(And now we ought to be finally happily conversing within the fabled dark and vacuous universe.)
(‘Totality and Infinity’ is not a philosophy book about alterity or the Alter or the alterity of the Alter. ‘Totality and Infinity’ is a memory book: ‘Totality and Infinity’ is a memory caught in the iterative act of remembering – a memory which remembers – a memory which can only remember itself. ‘Totality and Infinity’ is a memory preserved unforgotten [the same could be said about practically everything… d’oh…].)
The perfect allegory of all existence is the hologram. Necessarily, then, light is all information; and knowledge and good humour happen to be simply emanations of light. What is death? Dead.
What is light? Everything (…that capably makes us capable of seeing everything that can be seen).
Things assume their realness by ceaselessly repeating themselves.
Those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it 🙂 🙂 🙂
Featured Image:
Turġien. Photography and edit August 2022 at Sliema, Malta. Original artwork by the author.