From this Discourse on a Discourse, and many other discourses

In this short essay we settle into the varied experience that we will be exploring through this book. Pulling together all types of experiences and perspectives to try and encapsulate what the Caribbean has to offer.

“We need those stubborn shadows where repetition leads to perpetual concealment, which is our form of resistance.”

I find myself rereading each of these paragraphs. The themes of obscurity that made itself known in the last essay make themself known to us again here. The lack of transparency when it comes to communication the impossibility to know anything to its fullest extent is something that is right in our face.

It’s ironic he talks about how repetition does not lead to a furthered understanding of whatever is being repeated but can actually lead to a further concealment of whatever you are going over, while I reread this essay over and over to try and understand it a bit more.

It got me thinking what does our everyday resistance look like and how do we participate in those measures? A while ago I saw this TikTok which talked about how for a culture to evolve it needs to occur in its own rhythm and repetition so that things could grow in a manner for all individuals to thrive. I apply this idea to our current systems which see culture as another opportunity for exploitation, shifting cultural norms from the interpersonal to the material and vapid.
With no community, culture is attempted to be found through possession. Identity is isolated and destroyed in a long suffocating process. It is only through repetition that something is attempted to be made a new.

But the 3 sections of this essay push my mind to take this further. Glissant opens talking about how the intention of his work is to bring together all levels of experience, to recognize what takes root and what has been allowed to evolve, and what realities are consistently slipping away at the tips of our fingertips. Then he moves on to speaking on how oral and written communication are confronted with each other they accumulate the silent hurts that have been built up and finds a new type of expression. He closes out the essay speaking on setting out to explore the earth and its misunderstood impulses and how “The history of all peoples is the ultimate point of our imaginative consciousness”

I’m sat thinking about how these 3 ideas connect to each other, it feels like they each explain the same thing but through a different medium.

First of oral and written communication. When it comes to these two types of communication they serve as the first steps to committing ourselves to material action, as opposed to staying in mental cycles that get us stuck in paralysis. Both oral and written communication allow for expression of the mind in a similar way but each of their results affect the individual differently. With oral communication alone it lets the body speak as well, you can hear the emotion or lack there of in one’s voice. Speaking orally lets the mind vent through the body with whatever language is being spoken. The language bends to the will of whoever speaks it, a soft and slow healing for the mind flushing the flooded caves of your head. Writing does the same thing but through a different medium. Where one could speak for days on end clearing their mind with no focus simply just draining themselves, writing takes a more intention. A process that connects your mind and body to find a flow of expression. It’s a more grounding experience, the speed of your mind is slowed by the speed of your body, you become more in tune with yourself and let your mind wander towards your focus. Your healing is proactive, each time you choose to write another word and extend your piece you unfurl a new you.

Second of exploring your world. Like how speech comes to further our understanding of self so does exploring our communities and greater world. To understand the communities and people you’ll meet as you further your self expression, you must know yourself to an equal extent. For every new encounter you find comes a new you to be experienced. Misunderstandings of yourself that you haven’t yet tackled within yourself leading to furthered misunderstandings to those you interact with. A daunting process of constant refinement. A forever repetition who’s only goal is to become more true with every encounter. Unlike oral and written communication, exploration shifts how our mind drains itself out from us. No longer is it simply through speech and the word but it encompasses all forms of self expression. The whole of the body becomes the entity to express the depths of the mind and to heal in all of its complexities.

But like with all things to heal is a choice. There comes a point where one must ask when does the shift occur from healing to living? Glissant points out how those in the Caribbean feel that we are forever shackled to a our past and stuck in a cycle of permanent healing and retraumatization.
Those that were enslaved were forcibly disconnected from the cultures and communities that they once knew, in attempts to rekindle the flame of connection that had been dimmed repetitions of a forgotten history were born. Making the most of all circumstance before them, repetitions of the unknown were set in motion. Becoming more and more obscure by the day but giving birth to something new. The greatest form of resistance there is, self expression.

The origins of self, obscure and unknown in its own right. To then express it, is to express freedom, life, and humanity.

Next is ‘From a Presentation Distant in Space and Time’