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| Adelard of Bath's translation of Euclid's Elements, c. 1309–1316 |
The issue is to be subordinated to a priesthood of world makers, to a small cadre of cosmogonic bagpipers, to the operetta types, to the dark magicians; it is that inhabitants of a world have been distanced from an understanding of and from participation in design. To become subsumed in full belief of a fiction’s reality or naturalness (whether of the ancient or contemporary variety), is to be in total existential dependency and therefore be personal invested in its reproduction. It gives you the existences and their essences, the tools and their form of use or built-in constraints, and puts you in command of establishing your own presence; but with the very same gesture that you command, you are commanded. All of this has led us to the precipice of homogeneity, ecological collapse and total captivity.
When one lives in clear relation and connection with those things that care for them and sustain them – they return the care and nurture them in return. They work on their relationships and can see themselves as both independent, and as part of the whole; as whole or complete. And though one might lose their 'presence' in the face of such wholeness, they might also catch a glimpse of being present without any properties, and be at home. But against the nothingness, we can build and practice a concrete, situated, direct cosmos, a form, a modus; we can construct a rhythm of relationships that tend as much as possible, towards beauty (as a world that can be inhabited). The task of the pedagogue then, is to initiate those who will inhabit a world, into being their own cosmogonic bagpipers.
