#forgetting

“have you noticed

how the sharply delineated edges

of bad memories

soften and curl in on themselves

when inevitably placed

to the flame of time

they are burnt by a nostalgia

that in the moment

you could have sworn

you would never fuel

if we cannot forgive

life makes us forget

so that we move forward

with lighter step”

- d.c.

Discourse analysis practices a ‘joyful positivism.’ It accords not even a relative autonomy to philosophical discourse. It does not deal with the one Urschrift which every metaphysics of presence has supposedly forgotten, but rather with the many forgotten techniques which were invented to counteract forgetting.

–Kittler, “Forgetting”

The methodological hypothesis of discourse analysis is as simple as that. It presupposes forgetting and disappearance, disintegration and erosion precisely where philosophy decreed presence and retaining. Such simplemindedness has its advantages. It is only against the background of disappearance without return that the techniques and institutions which produce or insure a certain permanence can appear in their specificity.

– Kittler, “Forgetting”

Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?

– Sigmund Freud

Sifting through old journal entries. Despite our best efforts, it’s near impossible to forget a single soul these days, isn’t it?