Istanbul 04: The Dervish

By revolving in harmony with all things in nature--with the smallest cells and with the stars in the firmament--the semazen testifies to the existence and the majesty of the Creator, thinks of Him, gives thanks to Him, and prays to Him. In so doing, the semazen confirms the words of the Qur'an (64:1): Whatever is in the skies or on earth invokes God.

Monday, May 19, 2008, Turkoman Hotel, Istanbul

Ate at the Rumeli restaurant before going to the large outdoor tourist cafe to watch a whirling dervish spin and spin. He was such a beautiful boy, probably in his mid-20s with a heavy five o'clock shadow and exquisite Sufi outfit. I kept thinking of how he (the man) disappeared in his dancing à la anātman in Buddhism, yet really more akin to Western mysticism because the experience of Śūnyatā within Buddhism is not supposed to be mystical at all.

Here he was, dressed all in "death": his robe a shroud for the ego; his camel-hair hat, a tombstone. But as any mediocre Tarot card reader will tell you, death is merely a symbol for change.

Nothing to say about love...

This interview suffers from the “Dance, Monkey, Dance!” Syndrome: flaccid American asks the world's greatest living philosopher (at the time) to perform for the camera on a topic he clearly isn’t interested in. But Derrida, in his generous generosity obliges, indulging the weak-minded question with a somewhat articulate—particularly for being impromptu—response about the difference/différance between/among the who(s) and the what(s) of love.



Do I love you for who you are? My friend? My lover? Or for what you are? Intelligent? Sexy? Do I love you because of what you do? Because you love me too? Do I love the absolute singularity of who you are? And when I stop loving you, will it be because of who you are [not] (no longer my lover), what you are [not] (no longer sexy), or for what you have [not] done (not loved me in return)?

Or can I love you purely because of your replaceability? For the fact that I can choose anyone else at any other time—knowing full well that the metaphysics of identity and time collapse just as fully and unequivocally as all [other] metaphysical systems in the end?

But can the modality of love bring us even closer together by helping to eradicate the notions of I and you (and us) altogether? That is, if—in the same way that each word engulfs an equally and conterminously unsayable silence—the I and the you embrace the not-I and the not-you (mere placeholders in an attempt to say something (which remains not-a-thing) real about the irreality of love in the first place)—we finally move beyond/through the metaphysics of identity which we sorely cling to in the West, especially as it perpetuates itself [gets perpetuated] through language, and approach a pure modality of love wherein no I and no you [and no us] exist, at which point existence itself—neither it nor self—ceases to ex/ist.

Or maybe we should just spend the rest of our lives searching for the “true love” Charlene sang about all those years ago:

Das ist der Deal

Rarely does a day go by since I first heard this song in Germany that I don't stop to listen to it or sit down to watch this video. Yes, yes: come marry me! (And that's only a message to my secret love..... Miguel, I hope you don't mind finding out this way!)