Friday, May 29, 2009

Rhizomes: Constructors of Living Unities



After reading Deleuze’s “Rhizome” from his book A Thousand Plateaus I figured out how fast my mind and critical thinking have evolved due to the fact that I actually fully understood it this time with the help of my own interpretations of things I have seen previously in class. I think all this comes as a result of the many views interrelated in my system just like they are bridged in every other one of us. All this is constructed or linked by the Rhizome, that is why I utterly agree with Deleuze who looks at our bodies as bodies without organs; empty open-ended bodies related to other bodies in a rhizomatic way. That is because I actually believe that one can never build his own education and system of thinking without being affected by others since from the minute we are born our parents influence our ways of behavior, especially when it comes to learning language which starts to suspend the concept of the signified and start building signifiers. Also, as we grow up and start our education, we are affected first by our teachers who ‘impose’ their own views so that they perfectly correlate with ours, and second by the material we read, use, and study which are written or constructed by others. Therefore, all throughout our lives we are being aided and accumulated and we stay that way until the minute we die; thus, forming an assemblage of uncountable entities . However, I think that even after our death we do not fully decade or put an end to this assemblage we have already built and worked on, whether consciously or unconsciously, but it will help form other people’s assemblages, first through what we have constructed as bricholeurs when we were alive that influenced other people (writings, actions, teachings, etc.), and second through our decaying under the soil; thus, acting as an aid for other souls to come to life (plants) or survive (animals).
This brings me to Deleuze’s view of the tree which to him is nothing more than a close-ended, striated, vertical form of life where each tree stands on its own and does not help in the development of other trees. Deleuze compares the tree to the old concept of a book. According to classical thinkers, the canons or the great works of literature each represent one tree which has never been influenced by other canons, unless unintentionally. However, I couldn’t agree much with Deleuze’s comparison because I was able to view the tree as more than just a stiff piece of wood with leaves, but as a form of life getting nurtured from the soil and rain through its roots. When I actually looked at it that way, I realized that all trees are completely interrelated. That is, they have the same source of life which is the rain, the soil, and the manures that help fertilize the trees. And in fact manures come from animals; thus, forming another rhizome linking animals to the trees.
Therefore, although Deleuze convinced me in most of the things he said, viewing the tree as a full puzzle in itself with closed up boarders where no interference is accepted was one point I could not agree with because I believe that every structure of life has other structures attached to it in order for it to survive and fabricate itself. I am not saying that an individual is incapable of constructing his/her own self; it is just that he/she is incapable of constructing his/her own self on his/her own.
Hence in a way, if we look deeply into everything around us and in the way they survive, we can see how rhizomes are found everywhere amongst us; thus, attaching all living beings to one another just like books, in the mind of Deleuze, only exist when linked to other books so that they produce something proficient and consumable in the eyes of logic.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

WHO AM I ??


Is it through here that I must cross
the threshold?
Or is it through the upper stream?
Should I really depend on the above?
Or must I trust the below?

Streams of unrevealed truths trespass my mystified mind!
Questioning unsure facts… is this the way it should be?

Being Human is auspicious, I reflect!
Though being aware of who you really are is confounding.
Or is it that being insentient and exposed to the outer world that it is hard to survive!?

What is it that I really need to gain self-esteem?
Must I doubt my existence? Or must I strive to survive?
Is it myself in society that I look for, or is it my identity that I seek?

WHO AM I … I endeavor to know!!!

Eyes staring…concentrating!
Eyebrows shrugging…my brains bearing!
Is it I the center of attention or is it JUST me, myself, and I?!

Is it my hair, my smile, my walk?
Am I the BEAUTY? Or am I the BEAST?

Do I belong to this acquisitive world where residing requires perfunctory demeanor?
Or is it through the spiritual world that I transcend?

My body…my soul, which one is it?
My consciousness…unconsciousness, someone admit!
They wrestle…they struggle…they thrash about!!


Could someone HELP ME realize…WHO AM I?









Thursday, March 19, 2009

Tragically Re-United

Gazing out into the land
Where stars and moonlight beam,
She stood right there all nice and glad
Thinking: “It’s all a dream!”

Joyful, fancy people mingling
All yell with sensation:
“Julie! David! Have a great life,
Good luck! Congratulations!”

“It’s time to go,” Julie yelled back
“We must now hit the road.”
“Hold on my love we must unpack,
My dad had a heart stroke!”

As if the world came to an end,
They both drowned into tears;
They cried, they moaned, their poor hearts rend
Erasing all their cheers.

The moment of separation
Arrived with untied-arms,
Welcomed with sighs and desperation;
It’s Peter’s time to part.

Two days have passed, where Julie sat
Thinking it’d been two years,
Alone in bed counting the tads
Of chattered souvenirs.

Praying God for hope, for a sign
“Ring, ring!” is all she heard,
She grabbed the phone, held it up high
“My love please say the word!”

“Julie my dear, how is your day?”
Disappointed she replies:
“Hey sis I’m good, are you ok?”
“I’m fine” but with a sigh.

“Helena, what--what’s with the moan?”
Julie exclaimed aloud;
“I have bad news are you alone?”
“Don’t care, just let it out.”

“A while ago my little sis,
I heard the awful news,
The news I really wished to miss
For it brings pain to you!”

“I pray you tell what pain is this?
You’re driving me insane,
Oh please you drag what’s left of rest
From my wearisome veins!”

“A plain has crashed on its way here
Because of false forecast,
A cruel storm seized it when near;
Peter was found the last!”

Too stiff to move, too shocked to sit,
Lost in her little world;
Trying to figure out her sin
That caused what she has heard.

When answers were no longer found,
She realized her pain;
She dropped the phone, fiercely ran out
For it was all in vain.

As raindrops pierced her guiltless smile,
Transformed it into ache;
Julie scampered for miles and miles,
Trying her grief to break.

Until no miles were long enough
To fill her lonely space,
She stopped, she stared, then looked aloft
She cried: “God! My life waste!”

Julie endlessly fell to sleep
On the grass where life’s gone;
She vanished deep into her dreams
Awaiting Peter to come.

As she woke up, Peter was there
Cremated, like he willed;
Fell down, collapsed; she could not bear
To see her husband killed.

She took hold of her sacred jar
Then ran out to the sea;
Stood proud, held it up to the stars
Then shed a lonesome tear.

She now stands on the highest cliff
Where wind cuddles her face;
Took a deep breath, and with a swift
Lets go of David’s remains.

Along with her soul’s other half,
Julie throws in the rest;
Unconscious she liberates herself
And drops down really fast.

She hits the surface of the sea,
Pierces the Blue right through;
Her eyes are shut, she cannot see
How life exists there too.

Although her senses function not,
She only tends to feel
Her husband’s soul, and hers at last,
Re-unite under the sea!