#50 Wed (8/10/22) - [OW] On insomnia and paradox

 Insomnia again, but rather than view it as a curse, I tried to view it as a gift.  I lay there awake for a while but then turned the light on and started to read.  I read several chapters of Borges and Me by Jay Parini. (I will have more to say about this later, or perhaps not).

In the course of which, I had a few ideas of a scattered nature.

1) Why do we view insomnia as a drawback?  Usually because we are on a fixed schedule, and failing to get enough sleep, means that we will be flagging in our forced labors tomorrow.  However, that is no longer the case.  If I am tired in the mid-afternoon, I can simply move to the couch for a brief nap.  I am no longer trapped at work, in an inhospitable gray room, with an uncomfortable chair and no way to lay down of close my eyes for even a minute.  Insomnia is now just a way of reallocating our productivity to different hours.  If my body does not wish to sleep in the nighttime between 3 and 5 am, then be awake and do something worthwhile.

2) The actions of our civilization at a collective level are incompatible with the requirements of our survival at an individual level.  Our civilization and its core tenets are arriving at a situation which will render the planet inhospitable to our individual continued existence. Man is a paradox to man. By paradox I mean the suspension of two incommensurate truths that are simultaneously in conflict and mutually supporting. Paradox: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. Something that appears false and later turns out to be true is not really a paradox.  Two true, but mutually contradictory propositions creates a paradox.  But in so doing, usually exposes either a normative misunderstanding or a semantic elision.  Words are being used in contradictory or misleading contexts.  For example: The more mankind succeeds as a civilization, the more costs and burdens he imposes on the environment that sustains him.  In this paradoxical statement, "succeeds" is doing the work here. Success should not be defined as just short term energy exploitation and proliferation, but should incorporate within it a sense of long term survivability and robustness. It does not.  The actual conclusion is that the long term aims of our civilizational model are at odds with our long term survivability.  The model itself is flawed.  At some point, the model will be repudiated.

3) Borges apparently had six poems published for the first time in English translation in the February 1999 edition of Harper's magazine. The collection was published under the title of Insomnia.

History of the night / translated by Charles Tomlinson -- (SP, 415)
Two forms of insomnia / translated by Alan S. Trueblood -- (SP, 433)
The two cathedrals / translated by Stephen Kessler -- (SP, 425)
Note for a fantastic story / translated by Stephen Kessler -- (SP, 437)
Alexandria, 641 A.D. / translated by Stephen Kessler -- (SP, 393)
The just / translated by Alastair Reid -- (SP, 455)

All of these were included in the Selected Poems (1999) edited by Alexander Coleman.  They mostly come from the collections History of the Night ('77) and La Cifra ('81). I was able to get a copy of the Harper's article from the UIUC Library.  The poem, Two Forms of Insomnia equates a night of insomnia, the body rebelling against need, to the process of senescence and death, the body rebelling against will.