ARhythmEthics

                         for Tārā Kachroo

              «R.[hythm] as presynt[ax]! (d’ailleurs partout!)»
              – Sergeĭ M. Èĭzenshteĭn (~1935)*

It is up to me
To choose the criteria
Of finite convergence

And it is up to me
To choose the variables
Which I want to quantify

Given the available systems of my environment
The intersubjective soundness of my performance
Will be a matter of others’ judgment

If I communicate my criteria well
And if I seek their relevance to the criteria of others
We may find an agreement on mutual adequacy

The boundedness and convergence is a key
To be able to represent an inner-defined faith
On the boundary of intersubjectively common facts

The yīn dive leads to acidic spiral of deconstruction and phantasy
Its unboundedness is a sin of a naïve selfpleasuring heartmind
Only completed bounded processes allow to perform an integration

And only such processes are communicable without seduction
The latter is the same as a nonrenormalisable model
Where you chase signs which diverge beyond the limits of your finite awareness

The nihilism of chán has its point, at infinity equivalent with zero
Yet even then you have to eat and sleep
And why shouldn’t you, after all

Practice singleminded focus
Tatra pratyayaikatānatā dhyānam
Finitely complete bounded processes

Share the results with others
By the measures localised on the boundary
Let them choose


IX.17, Żoliborz


* A remark on the margin of page 79 of Marcel Granet, 1934, La pensée chinoise, Albin Michel, Paris; as quoted in: Вячеслав В. Иванов [Vyacheslav V. Ivanov], 1976, Очерки по истории семиотики в СССР [Sketches on the history of semiotics in USSR], Наука [Nauka], Москва [Moskva], p.188; c.f. also: Юрий И. Манин [Yuriĭ I. Manin], 1977, Человек и знак [Man and sign], Природа [Priroda] 1977:5, 150–152.