by Slavoj Žižek (Author), F.W.J. von Schelling (Author), Judith Norman (Translator)

First published by University of Michigan in 1997.

The Abyss of Freedom — Quotes are in Italic

the crucial point of giving an account of the differentiation between Past and Present, of the emergence of the Word from the self-enclosed rotary motion of drives

Schelling alone persisted in the “impossible” position of the post-Idealist crack that was quickly filled by the post- Hegelian ·reversals” of Idealism. Schelling’s first name for this crack is the gap that forever separates Existence from its Ground,

this gap that separates Existence from its Ground has nothing whatsoever to do with the premodern moduality of “cosmic principles” (Light and Darkness, Masculine and Feminine, etc.)

Schelling’s difference between Existence and its Ground radically undermines every dualism of cosmological “principles.”

Also presents simple break == god is emergence of recognitions of time, of tenses ?! past present future

distinction between God’s Existence and its Ground, between the Absolute insofar as it fully exists

without language, without explication, without knowledge of itself ? in midst of continuity..

and obscure longing (Sehnsucht) that strives for something outside itself without a clear notion of what it strives for,

What does the Will aspire to “is: it strives after illumination, it yearns for the Word to be pronounced

Word being akin to recognition of symmetries, and transformations, hunger, violence death… as a “victim” of consciousness of “existence” in time – without time there is no such thing as Myth or Knowledge no Illumination — out of which God as vessel emerges

The first Will — as the divine Sdbstheit, as “being-itself,” and serves as the necessary ground of the latter’s expansion.

tension in the midst of the Absolute itself is, therefore, far more enigmatic than it may appear,

space of traditional ontology: the opposition between Ground and Existence does not overlap —

Where the thing Breaks into Good and Evil — evil representing this opposition — within itself, as without itself

This is why there is Evil in the world: on account of the perverse need of the Perfect for the Imperfect,

This paradoxical need of the Perfect for the Imperfect is another name for the Hegelian project of conceiving the Absolute “not only as Substance, but also as Subject.”

the opposition between (imperfect) Ground and (perfect) Existence,

I think of existence as god, but I never think of existence as perfect, nor do I think of god as perfect, but as beauty ugliness love sadness tragedy, that lies as a shadow, of time, past present future, across rotary of matter… out of whose continuity, love horror desire excitement my soul as a kind of funny excrement, emerges from the swallowing itself set of time

that there is something in God that is not God means that Substance implies Subject as its constitutive openness,

I dont think of anything, as not being god, I dont buy into god as split in anyway, and the good evil dichotomy, probably another reason why I left belonging to any religion, that for instance, imagined god as a perfection, I didnt find in god, as existence, anything more than a unity, that could be observed, in myself or others, and that included books, that included anything wrt god or myself, as part of being conscious of a subject — Didnt see god as other, but as one and the same with existence, which confused me wrt understanding differences, and otherness, sometimes.

Schelling explicitly sexualizes the relationship between Existence and its Ground, conceiving Ground as the impenetrable “feminine” foundation of the male Word.

Ha there it is. Blame me ha! Tho jokes aside, I find men just as impenetrable as women. I like to think of impenetrability merely as difference. Yeah, kind of. And also, the exchange “factor” consider as a boomerang, where its impossible to tell, who the subject is — as it may include itself and yet appears outward, open, even aimed at the other — is conditioned for a response ? munching with punch and judy has within it freedom as an aspiration

Ground usurps the leading role, it changes from a benefident protective power to a horrible fury bent on destroying every determinate Existence.

Furies are outgrowth of death, as a part of the subject, subject is graced with furies, as recognition of loss and horror inherent within it, existence merely is… I think of ground as being that rotary that just turns in an ever unchanging cycle of change…

prior to its assertion as the medium of rational Word, the subject is the pure “night of the Self,” the “infinite lack of being,” the violent gesture of contraction that negates every being outside itself, also forms the core of Hegel’s notion of madness:

when Hegel determines madness as withdrawal from the actual world, the closing of the soul into itself, its “contraction,” the cutting-off of its links with external reality, he quickly conceives this withdrawal as a “regression” at the level of the “animal soul” still embedded in its natural environs and determined by the rhythm of nature (night and day, etc.).

Dont disagree. This happened to me. Madness fell through time, out the old way, sudden explosion of symmetries, at edge of time with the animal soul, as if a travel thru the ages, that then all existed at once, in contradiction of one another, almost as separate selves within the host, host being my crazy existence, and then there was the notorious third eye that refused to close or ignore it — shocked the shit out of me, and fascinated to No End… To be honest, I went after it, unknowing what it was, but convinced it was so important to me because it elevated the simple fact of my existence to potions/notions of the sacred and the absurd.

the true question is rather how the subject is able to climb out of madness and to reach “normalcy.”

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