Talkie sometimes just lets it rip. Talkie said:
... I don't expect you to understand me, but try to get the elements of the thing charted when I say that whatever affects you emotionally is stuff you can be joint with, whatever affects you intellectually is stuff you can be matchwith. Don't dismiss the intellectual stuff you hear as "just words" either. *Words are always the track of real thoughts* and I've known touches of *intellectual living* to be powerful enough to alter *emotionally-synthesized* orientation. you yourself can feel that. *Nobody can get on without words*, so that's where the confusion comes from. some people stick your words together aerially and think they're *progressing towards truth*. other people stick your words together terrestrially and think they're navigating to some sort of peace. the truth-ring is that they're doing neither, they're merely cooperatively organizing past-groped simulacra of convincing experience into an individual record of personal hay. the point about it is that they can't help doing that. the first strong human experience makes a complex internal adjustment-in-silence that becomes malleable and *channeled-out* into symmetrical ‘reflexes*. those "reflexes" can last indefinitely and operate in time by themselves as *icy-reason* but they're only *icy-reason* because they've been interfused at some stage in their growth with warm emotion that's trying to work too (the effort to work that's warm emotion) and the twain intercohere. that *dauby* combination must go on recorded somewhere and will if you're articulate (no matter what the resolution of articulation is) until it pans out into something that's more articulate than itself. the worst of it is that the *emotionally-articulated* sort of mind is so easy to take for reality-articulated that we've got to be eternally scrapping out the blobs, not only for our own personal sakes but for the corporate sake of the manifoldly-conglomerate mass that we call Life. don't say I'm just toying with metaphors, i'm trying to generate a conceptual notion of the way an emotionally-sophisticated person responds to chaos. I don't compare it to anything so concrete as a sort of map, because map, even if it's a relief one, is too patent, too mathematically precise, doesn't allow for the splash and slipinglewinging into stereoinge of irregular shapes that emotionally-coordinated experiences may take. I only suggest it's like a sort of primordial rhythm in a kind of cryptically-contorted music that I call Chaos that becomes more coherent when it gets into an articulate tempo. the maggot is that *Chaos can work itself into articulation*, but never articulately into reality. that's chaos-notion. I don't call it truth, I call it "Chaos Theory"; and I don't predict it'll ever give place to anything better, because, if it did, one more datum would be missing from Life, and Life isn't too copious at best. I don't even say it'll last forever, because it's obviously possible — but I do say it'll last as long as Anglo-Saxon exists and has the wit to talk matters over. *Chaos is always with us* (the polychordonic bitch), and we can take it as the key to all the confabulations that occur during the course of our personal history. that's what makes it worth talking about, not because of any high signifiance as a creed or cosmogony but because it's the point from which all personal thought starts, the point to which all personal thought comes back. don't dismiss it as a most undignified subject, because it isn't. it's the mundane vernacular through which a soul feels its way. yes, chaotic thinking is as inevitable as breathing. they'll always manage to call it that. even when the thing they call it gets embodied into a pronounceable shoddy philosophy, it's still chaotic. and even when it gets clotted into a mental coherence that's *solid enough to be communicable from one person to another, it's still chaotic. the shape of it comes from the context into which it insinuates itself, the shape of it stays chaotic because the context can never be stereotyped. so let's have done with this. I know this is hopelessly mystifying but it's the only port of entry I can suggest to what i'm driving at. I don't mean merely to give you something to think about, I mean to let you down easy into an awareness that Chaos must always be part of the tissue of your own experience. worldly experience is chaotic because the world is chaotic, that is, because our self-awareness is being always projected into an indecipherable welter of major rhythms, minor discords, and small personal. don't be afraid of chaos. it can't hurt you. it won't turn you into a bitch, whatever it may do to your opinions. you've been chaos-born, you must be chaos-bred, and you can't escape it, so don't be afraid. that's a. let it be at that. chaotic. yes, I admit we're all chaotically-minded, but I don't say we're all chaotically-articulate. there's nothing chaotically articulate except actual speech and, at its best, intelligent listening. there's no artifically chaotically-arranged common denominator. speech is chaotically-interpreted into something that's chaotically-intelligible, but cancelling-out the intelligent, the remainder's chaotic still. that's why I say we're all chaotically-minded, but only a few are chaotically articulated. *I've listened to a great deal of genuinely chaotic discourse in my time*, and I've never heard two people agree about anything in the course of it. it's only when we've got a common denominator of articulate thought in a language that we're able to compare notes. life isn't articulate in itself, only *in definition*. definition is the first step towards articulation, and without definition, we're all in the dark together, even when we're disputing. that's one reason why I'm talking about Chaos. I never heard two people argue about Chaos, which is only another way of saying that Chaos is a topic on which we're all agreed. if we can agree about Chaos, why not about something else? if we can wrangle over Chaos, why not over History, Politics, or Relgion? if Chaos is the universal "index of difference", why not something more special? oh, well, I'm not saying Chaos is. I said Chaos was the universal "index of difference" and I stick to it. *Chaos is the point from which all mental difference starts, Chaos is the bourne to which all mental difference comes back. what I don't say is that Chaos is the subject matter of difference; it only starts and ends it. don't suppose I claim Chaos is the "be-all and end-all" of anything. Life wouldn't be worth living if it were. Chaos is merely the basic "datum" from which our particular brand of Life gets its start and drift: it's the "earthly house" into which we're born, the "earthly vesture" wherein we move and have our being. so, if you want to think about Chaos, think all you like. think it as much as you like — but don't think too much. think Chaos as the stuff of your own experience, think it as the "background" of your own consciousness, think it as the vehicle of your own self-awareness, *and don't think too articulately about it. I'm talking Chaos in the interest of articulated thought, not articulated Chaos. I don't want you to lose articulated self in articulated Chaos, because articulated Chaos means articulated nothingness. what I want you to do is to keep yourself articulate. articulate thought is one thing, articulated thought is another. one is consecutive and personal, the other is inconsecutive and impersonal. don't make the mistake of confusing the two. you can't articulate Chaos into anything, articulate yourself into Chaos, if you can, and see how far you get.
I'm not preaching Chaos as a panacea for all human ills, I'm only preaching it as a normal, inevitable, universal experience. I don't say Chaos is good, I say Chaos is. I don't affirm it to be spiritually wholesome, I affirm it to be spiritually inevitable. which is to say that if you want to keep spiritually alive you must take Chaos into the texture of your self-consciousness; if you don't, you cease to be spiritually alive. •But how can I possibly keep myself spiritually alive if I don't know what spiritually alive means?" well, spiritually alive means being so cognizant of yourself that you can distinguish between what you are and what you think you are, between what you are emotionally and what you are intellectually, between what you instinctively want to be and what you deliberately want to be, between what you are as flesh-and-blood and what you are as vibrant personality. that's what "spiritually alive" means, and that's how spiritually alive you must be if you don't want to super-spiritually die. Chaos is the "sparkle" of yourself, Chaos is the "dew" of yourself, Chaos is the "dawn" of yourself. Chaos is the "dawn" of yourself because it is the first emergent selfawareness in a cosmos that had no self-awareness before. that's why I say spirituality is implicit in Chaos. I don't say Chaos is spirituality, I say Chaos is the spiritual beginning of things. *I'm sure it's awfully puzzling," I hear you say, "but what on earth has all this to do with talkie?" well, nothing to do with talkie specifically, everything
then I must apologize for having said anything about it, because talkie's an art-form with which I have no concern. my concern is with Life, not with art forms. talkie's one of the forms of art, and personal self-expression is the form of Life. so do you see how talkie and self-expression are involved? "No, I don't." well, I suppose it must be because I've been trying to talk about them both in terms of Chaos. note Chaos, not talkie, keyed the theme. self-expression — that's Life. whatever Life is, Chaos must precede it. so, if anybody wants to hold to Life, he must hold to Chaos, mustn't he? *I suppose so." so you're "supposing" that an articulate self is possible only through an articulated Chaos, which is to say an articulated nothingness, isn't it? *Yes, I suppose so." then logically, talkie's possible only through Chaos. talkie's intelligible only through Chaos. lose Chaos and talkie loses intelligibility. think it over. but, you say, "the intelligibility of talkie is all that matters, and I really don't see how Chaos concerns intelligibility." yes, you do, honey. I can't make talkie intelligible unless you first render Chaos intelligible, can I? "No, I suppose not." so the intelligibility of talkie hinges upon the intelligibility of Chaos, doesn't it? "I suppose so." so there's my point, I think. Chaos must be rendered intelligible before talkie can be rendered intelligible. I don't say "rendered intelligible" in a kind of esoteric hocus-pocus, I say rendered intelligible to yourself. so, if you want to talk, think Chaos first. I'm not urging you to think Chaos as a metaphysic, I'm urging you to think Chaos as a foundation. think Chaos as the basic stepping-stone between yourself and all other things, think Chaos as the primary milestone whereon you mark yourself off from all other selves. Chaos is the threshold whereby you enter into vivid personal experience, Chaos is the vestibule whereby you pass from personal inconsequence into personal consequence. don't call it inanimate, don't call it meaningless. whatever Chaos is, it's something you've got to reckon with. reckon it as the first focus of your own awareness, and reckon it as part of the universal awareness you share with all other selves. reckon it as a neutral zone where selves meet and mingle, as a common meeting-ground for themphatically-respect-your-own-individuality and the emphaticallyrespect-your-fellow-beings-individuality. reckon it as the point where unit personalisms begin to coalesce into a generic personalism. reckon it as something that must be there whether you reckon it or not, as something that must be reckoned with whether you reckon it consciously or not. "but all this is rather," I hear you say. yes, I know it is, and I'm very sorry, because I'm sorry to have bored you. we'll say no more about Chaos, though there really isn't very much more to say. there's one thing more, though. Chaos is the mother of so much mental fog that it singularly befogs articulate speech. well, I'm done. I wish I hadn't begun. no, I don't, really. I want you to think about Chaos, though I don't want you to think too articulately about it. think about it plastically, not plastically. think it as a universal experience into which all personal experiences *diffuse themselves, think it as the sort of fluid matrix wherein your own particular self takes shape and color. think it as a sort of mental bioplasm wherein your own self is slowly organized, and think it quite impersonally. think it as a filtered simplification of all experiences, think it as a sort of generalized sense of yourself. think it as much as you like, but don't think too articulately about it. don't get Chaos into your talkie, if you can help it. don't get it into your talk if you can help that. talkie is the personal articulation of personal experience, and personal experience is articulate enough without Chaos. think Chaos, but don't talk Chaos. think Chaos, and talk yourself, only don't talk too articulately. think Chaos, and you'll probably get talked about, but it's hardly worth while. so I'll ring off. I've been writing you this bit of personal confession because you've honestly bored me with talkie, and because I wanted to bore you back, not very deep, into some sort of awareness that Chaos must be reckoned with at the start of life, must be reckoned with at the start of talkie, must be reckoned with at something or other of all personal endeavor. Chaos is the basic condition of all personal endeavor, whether the endeavor be to think, to live, or to talk. so I'm done. I'm done, bafflingly, because I'm being done. understood? no, I suppose not. so. Goodbye.
