Slows Steps on the Way...

Slow Steps on the Way...

What is it with rapidity, one would think, for, in this case, at least in this case, it was a good question, and this being such a case that it could be used as an example and offered up as a philosophy of the general law which one believed, that is, that there was no use of rapidity...in other words, this case would make a great argument for the uselessness of rapidity...

And so, things would begin slowly, as things often do, and they would go through some of the necessary steps that 'human nature' had asked one to make. They would follow a sequence, in other words, which was slow. The first step, the slow step we are talking of, being 'inspection', for things had to be inspected first, and one has to be careful not to go straight to the act with a thing that does not fit. For there is, in a sense, a hole, in one's mind, that is a placeholder for things, and all things must fit in it—and all things do fit in it...Nothing short of infinity fits in it, but still one has to go through the necessary steps, slowly, for inspection and slowness seem aligned for some reason, but it could be just something one does out of habit. Nonetheless, this thing did fit the mind, and indeed, it was a perfect match, and this led one to question, quite briefly, but indeed this too slowed things down a bit, which was important as we have pointed out, the question as to whether the mind was in fact plastic, which could be stretched or diminished for things to fit it. Two things have happened in the first step when in fact nothing has happened: the thing has fit the mind, and rapidity seems to have been reasoned away from this...

Now that rapidity has been established as dead, one can calmly move on to the second step here. Just as nothing really happened in the first step, nothing really happens in the second step. This is, in a sense, and in one sense only, the step of 'further inspection.' This means that it differs from the first step, because it goes further, but that it is still inspection nonetheless. This was different: there was an intimacy involved, there were moments involved when the past would come flooding in...and there was time involved when time would melt away, which means time was reduced in significance. It was, most importantly, a time of belief in things. For one, one believed in love here. One believed in those important events of the past. But this was of course a disappointing time, a confusing time, because one would find that nothing really fit together, that if one believed one thing the other believed something else, that if one felt this was important the other felt that was important. That is why we first established the other as a thing in this story's first step, it is first a thing because for one, it is truly lifeless, 'already dead' in one sense...and in another sense so worthless that even death is trivial when it happens to it. Therefore, the step of 'further inspection' is nothing other than the step where one establishes the other as a thing. It is, in a sense, the step that gets too close, from the perspective of building knowledge about the other. And so, in the sleepless nights of burning arguments...one asks, who knows to whom our feelings are really addressed, if they are indeed addressed to anything or anyone? Thus ends the second step on the way.

Two steps and nothing has happened. One wanted things to be slow, but things are in a standstill in another dimension. The third step is a sacrifice of the highest degree: Everyone has been assembled. And one rises to the top and tells them all: 'look, we are about to partake in a sacrifice, partake in it and not just witness it, and so please make sure that you do your part. My only note for the day is this: that sacrifice has been problematized because it is considered a 'cult of death', that it is considered all about death, and since death is wrong, sacrifice is wrong...'...and of course one saw that he was right, that we were doing this sacrifice neither for death nor for God, but, quite simply, for the sake of a system of steps...the slow steps on the way...to show that a system of steps is so strong that even human life has to be taken away to legitimize it...indeed, when human life is taken away by a system of steps, the system, and any system, appears strong and serious...and death in the series of steps is not the final step...death is also a slow step on the way... therefore, all the people convened close to the top, and they decided to bring a bowl...a bowl which they would leave by their feet, and which would thereby fill with tears flowing...

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In the above paragraphs, we moved all the way to men, but we must maintain and try to argue that, up there, nothing happens: we started with the thing's inspection, we then proceeded to a secondary inspection, and finally we came upon sacrificial death at the hands of men, which is nothing but a tertiary inspection, an inspection of innards, if you will. In the passage beyond the '*', what we really have is that the thing diminishes, and the men who killed it diminishes, but that the system of steps is not closed, because nothing in fact actually happened, and the system of steps has neither begun nor ended. One realizes, giving a message from the top, that, there, nothing happens. One climbs steps, but one never reaches top nor bottom...all a series of steps where nothing happens. One plays with time, slows things down...or brings things to a standstill, but nothing happens when one does and when one doesn't.

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