Note: The following belongs to a larger narrative context that began here with the story of a green reptile.
There are multiple ways to be green, as with everything. For instance one can never put in balance the liveliness of what it is to be meadow green with the eerie taste of swamp life.
“The one thing we know for sure about swamps is that they do not cast shadows.” Marcus thought. They are grounded beyond belief and impossible to separate from the earth to which they are stuck to. If you dropped a crumb on the ground the sun would notice it. The sun, however does not notice swamps. It sways over them and moves on to more serious things. A swamp cannot be serious. Or anything at all for that matter. A swamp is nothing. A swamp is nothingness. It absorbs and generates as Nothing does, it yields results and self discovery. However, there is no telling where a swamp is, how it starts and why, when acknowledged it should be rendered a swamp and not some other, clear and more functional form of a body of water.
Just how much water, vegetation and ground would one need for a swamp? And in what proportion should they be mixed? It is of great evidence that swamps are very ambiguous. As Nothing is. And at the same time, to anyone that stumbles into it, the swamps is as well very evident, as Nothing is in similar situations.
You can never put your finger on a swamp. You can touch water, earth, leaves, roots, but a swamp will always escape you. As will Nothing. Soon as you realize that you are swamped you are no longer per say “swamped” but troubled. As Nothing flees when one thinks about it, so do swamps when one tries assess them.
Finally, swamps are neither here nor there. Which is not to say that they are nowhere. They can be met, one crosses with them. Enters without knowing and escapes through action. Of course, you would say… as with Nothing.
So what precisely is the beauty of the swamp? That is still to be discussed.
Filed under: The Green Lizard , green, heidegger, nothing, nothingness, phenomenology, reptiles, swamp, what is metaphysics
