Living life in a charmed environment
THE beauty of true poetry does not reside in a show of learning, the latter often being of merely specious intent: poets vying to outdo each other! Perhaps the moment has come for me to distinguish between intellect and intellect: the one which is mere boisterous learnedness, the other a matter of erudition informed with modesty.
I have perhaps too often succumbed to unpleasant learnedness myself !
Philosophy of worth, and intellect, are also of a different calibre. Hence, if our column has introduced readers of it to an enthusiasm for poetry, I am happy.
I find it difficult to separate the concepts of poetry and intellect. And, the older I get, the more my approach to both is “from the ground” (from where again recently I had encouraging messages of appreciation for this view of things).
With no intention to sound “heavy”, the past few days have been hard on literary minds: Professor Johan Degenaar’s death; the passing of the poet Theuns Cloete (fondly recalled as tt); the passing on of the actor Bill Curry; and, in sporting environment (a milieu in which I am keenly interested), the death of the cricketer Clive Rice.
The death of “the philosopher of Stellenbosch” some days ago, Professor Degenaar, conjured up the question again: What is philosophy? Degenaar of course was not only “the philosopher of Stellenbosch”, but a philosopher, period!
What intrigues me about the question are the words “what is”. Analytically, it is easy to “define” the concept in its wake (whatever it may be). Is “analysis” what we are looking for, however – like the answer to “What is water”, as H2O? What would the analytical formula be for Love or Faith!
“What is” seems to search for something deeper, a substantiality not nearly as close at hand as formulae (chemical or whatever).
I have in the past been vexed by the question “What is philosophy” when thrown at me out of the blue. Surely a good response is that questioners simply must note carefully what the discourse is about!
A thinker like Martin Heidegger himself raises the question pertinently: “Was ist das – die Philosophie?” (What is Philosophy?) or also “Was heist Denken?” (What is Thought?). Heidegger is right: “We have uttered the word ‘philosophy’ often enough. If, however, we use the word… no longer like a worn-out title, if, instead, we bear the word ‘philosophy’ coming from its source, then it sounds thus: philosophia. Now the word ‘philosophy’ is speaking Greek.
“The word, as a Greek word, is a path. This path, on the one hand, lies before us, for the word has long since been spoken, ie set forth. On the other hand, it lies behind us, for we have always heard and spoken this word. Accordingly, the Greek word philosophia is a path along which we are travelling.”
Similar thoughts are expressed by the Spanish philosopher Ortega Y Gasset. His translator, José Mora, considers his view that “man is a circumstantial being”.
After all, what else: “In Ortega’s formula a self is identified with himself and his circumstances, and therefore the thesis is maintained… that a self can never be postulated as an ontologically independent being…”
The death of Theuns Cloete touched us, not only for the letter he wrote me (on July 24, 2015 – he died on the 29th – we corresponded regularly). I had contributed a poem to a volume of the Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe devoted to his life’s work, about the death of his wife, Anna (I translate): “I have not yet received a copy of the journal… but managed to get my hands on an electronic version of it, to satisfy my curiosity… To my joy and thankfully, I (again) read your lines about my Anna, which you dedicated to me. Needless to say, I am deeply grateful for the way the poem moved me… Love also to your dear Rosalie. I can only be thankful for the fact that the two of you are still with each other…”
In between all this, light-hearted- ness has a place: an anecdote herewith about the actor Bill Curry. My drama, The Orange Earth, was performed at the Baxter Theatre shortly after being written, in 1978. Bill played the lead role of Johnny Adams.
My wife and I met him often, and I recall one evening at his home. There we were standing, admiring a beautifully bronzed small set of weights (no more than an old pound) of the kind used by vendors to measure out quantities. It was a pretty ornament. Our admiration did not escape Bill, and he looked at us, humorously, saying: “If you lust after it, have it!” – which we have to this day. What a wonderful gift! Philosophy itself is such a gift in life.
At times I feel almost as if I am living in a charmed environment! Down my way in the South Peninsula, I have been privileged – blessed? – to live on streets shared by people of many derivations: Greek, Portuguese, Afrikaner, Black, Muslim, not to speak of my own brand of an Indian heritage woven into a fabric of Hinduism on the one hand and Christianity on the other! (In such a cultural treasure store, one does not count generations carefully – or perhaps only like the Catholic nuns who contributed to my schooling did on their rosaries…)
Hence, if our column has introduced readers of it to an enthusiasm for poetry, I am happy