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Vulnerability is not a sign of human weakness but strength (Chicago 2003)

  1. Vulnerability is not a sign of weakness but a sign of human strength.
  2. We need not to defend our vulnerability as long as we remain authentic.
  3. Authenticity means we are still willing to explore the world of the others.
  4. The others are not just human beings but equivalents to our way to live.
  5. Life is close to nature as well as urban based.
  6. Greek philosophy has always been urban orientated.
  7. The only exception has been Parmenides who believes in natural unity.
  8. Space and time for evolving historical reminiscent incidences are clear.
  9. The language history speaks over time is marked by futility.
  10. Borders of the imagination within that ‘resignation’ shut out voices.
  11. Voices protest, they can sing and speak, but never is silence excluded.
  12. Silence is needed to listen when the voice of reason speaks up.
  13. All too often in history that human voice has not been listened to.
  14. Men trapped in fake hierarchies, invent all kinds of needs for war.
  15. Always the fear to appear weak means going to war to show strength.
  16. But if strength and weakness is a part of life, their division negates it.
  17. Life can be seen like a paradigm of logos, the place to be in tune.
  18. In tune means whistling while remembering what is being said.
  19. The sounds that paint words create our feelings for others.
  20. Other tunes can follow as part of the memory track.
  21. Without this track we will not become differentiated.
  22. Nothing was build in one day, but destruction, yes, one day is enough.
  23. Over the ages people have been saying enough with war, conflict, hate.
  24. But then come along persons like Blair whose rhetoric blinds him.
  25. He believes in order to have peace one must risk war – a fallacy.
  26. No, to have peace you must risk peace based on trust.
  27. You cannot use methods going against mankind and still be open.
  28. War evokes changes that make anyone involved mentally sick.
  29. Such sickness is not just the opposite of healthy for it negates life.
  30. Like young children, heroism seeks to overcome wrong fears.
  31. They have been instilled in mankind by destroying the unity of the senses.
  32. Many Greek philosophers sought in the city such unity.
  33. Parmenides was an exception and said only in nature can it be found.
  34. Others added movement while still the question of logos prevailed.
  35. LOGOS is really about finding the place where openness exists.
  36. To the Greeks such openness meant relating the inner and outer world.
  37. They had in their temples already time frames to reflect images.
  38. Like the movies being created, the movement around the temple perceives.
  39. These temples stand on poetic grounds and not on battle fields.
  40. Homer revisited some of them and thought about Achilles.
  41. That war hero of Troy with his vulnerability never saw life.
  42. He raced from war to war, ravaging his enemies.
  43. He defined any enemy as the one who would stand up to him.
  44. Proud as he was, he never listened and then he was wounded mortally.
  45. Homer added his real vulnerability came to him as he sank into the grass.
  46. For Achilles had till his death never the time to smell the grass.
  47. He had negated his senses and ruled over himself with an iron fist.
  48. He never knew life until too late, the smell of the grass telling him that.
  49. So when to combine the senses with the logos, then to be vulnerable.
  50. Human beings cannot be otherwise but be vulnerable.

     

Hatto Fischer
Athens 22.8.2003

This was first presented in the class of Eleftheria Lialios at the Chicago Art Institute
in September 2003

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