de-hal

"Deha caliskanliktir." Dehayi belirleyen en onemli olgulardan birisi onun hayatin zemin katina biraktigi silik ayak izleridir. Bu izlerin silikligi ona olan uzaklikla ya da bakisin olusmaya basladigi anda dahil oldugu bir duzenekle ilintili degildir. Aksine hatirlayisin koyu pariltisiyla, ve belki bunun sonucunda kisiye getirdigi sonsuz tembellik hissiyle ilgilidir. Kendini dinleyisin ortaya cikardigi bu sezgisel an, hic beklenmedik bir duzlemde de kendisini ortaya cikarabilir. Iste boyle anlar, donusmeye baslayisin gune sizdigi ve sonsuzlugun bakisiyla kesistigi durgunlukla beslenen aralara yerlesir. Sonsuzlugun kendi kendisine hatirlattigi olum kanisi bu yazgida hic de beklenmedik degildir. Yeni bir yaziya ya da caliskanliga ulasmanin gundelik ve mekanik edimi belki de bu baglantida baslamalidir.

"But genius is the power to labor better and more availably. Deserve thy genius: exalt it."
Emerson

Cop(e)ying

The power of a country road when one is walking along it is different from the power from the power it has when one is flying over it by airplane. In the same way, the power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. The airplane passanger sees only how the road pushes through the landscape, how it unfolds according to the same laws as the terrain surrounding it. Only he who walks the road on foot learns of the power it commands, and of how, from the very scenery that for the flier is only the unfurled plain, it calls forth distances, belvederes, cleaings, prospects at each of its turns like a commander deploying soldiers at a front. Only the copied text thus commands the sould of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of daydreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command. The Chinese practice of copying books was this an incomparable guarantee of literary culture, and the transcript a key to China's enigmas. (Walter Benjamin, One Way Street, p. 447-448)