Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TF at 70: A meditation on nothingness

Brother Harrow!

On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 12:32 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

toyin, thanks as always for your wonderful reflections.

i wrote about nothingness in my book Postcolonial African Cinema and it was one of my favorite topics. i see it as that around which space organizes itself, around which that which is not nothingness forms into its shapes and being.

there is no being without nothingness against which it is to be set.

i gave an example of a dutch painting, it is "The Interior of St BAvo, Haarlem," 1628, by Pieter Saenredam

the heart of the painting is the empty space in the middle, which enables the other forms to take shape.

i use it in a chapter called Hyenas, Truth, Badiou's Ethics and the Return of the Void.

the void is the space around which the real is formed and toward the end of Hyenas, when Dramaan dies and the community has surrounded him, in the middle is the space of the void.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2023 2:51 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TF at 70: A meditation on nothingness

 

thanks for this Segun.

what does TF mean by Nothingness in this context?

is it the nothingness of absence of value, of existence?

is it the nothingness of transcendence, and yet of ultimate plenitude, like the Void of Buddhism and the Nothingness of Kabbalah?

what could the spectrum of ideas from various theologians of Orisa cosmology-Yoruba centred cosmology understood in terms of its deities so as to characterize it as eventually extending beyond Yoruba society- contribute to this?

Orisa cosmology theologian and philosopher  Susanne Wenger has this to say-

''Olorun Olodumare...is like Sohar-Kabbala's "The Unlimitable, The Incomprehensible, En-Sof, The In Itself Content God." He is axiom paradoxon, is both origin and consequence.

...always kept hidden behind veils of taboo and awe...

...in his quality as the creator, he is called Eleda or Ori, which is the summary of God-distribution in His creation, is all creations being godhead and unperishable part of Olodumare, God.

...

The Supreme Orisha is Orishaala (Obatala). But all sacred numinosity is, as one complex, also Orisha, the other disparate transcendent entity already mentioned. 

All individualized fractions, diversions and variations of the sacred, complex numinosities are, each in his own right and in his own transcendent (metapsychological) domain, Orisha. 

Orisha functions as an intermediary between Olodumare's unaddressable and imperceptible sanctity and his work-that is, ourselves. Man's aim is ritual awakening of matters, sanctity and lucid awareness of its being part of the divine. 

The crucial point in Yoruba metaphilosophy (in the collective subconscious) is reciprocal mystic transformation (god-man, man-god), a willfully controlled, dynamically relaxed, complex and perfect integration.''

Review of Harold Coulander's Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes in Research in African Literatures, Spring, 1976, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 74-76.

Wole Soyinka has a powerful discussion of nothingness or voidness, not sure which, in the essay prefacing his wonderful seven stanza summation  of Orisa cosmology in The Credo of Being and Nothingness but i don't recall him as correlating the cosmology and the idea of emptiness. 

how does Falola describe nothingness?

''Nothingness is a state of being, an imagination of futurism with realistic survivalism''

''My nothingness is to attain the status of egolessness, where silence replaces sound and privacy replaces information. The ears are sealed, the eyes are blind; the gaits become unwieldy, the self becomes meek; the body announces timidity, mouth asserts no reproach. Just look. Demure. Agree.''

''Nothingness is not about idleness.''

''Nothingness is about the relentless pursuit of virtues, the elevation of sacrifices over rewards''

''In nothingness is the secret of a new beginning, the audacity of knowledge to reinvigorate the metaphysics of life, and a quiet quest to receive the key to the afterlife''

On Sun, 1 Jan 2023 at 14:57, <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:

Congratulations TF, the new Septuagenarian and thanks for sharing your meditation with me and the rest of the world. 

TF, you have achieved so much in your existential life and have generously impacted hundreds and thousands of lives; and still making contributions to humanity. 

in all honesty, your life is not vanity upon vanity. You have built mansions to store your legacies to eternally immortalize your footprint on this planet earth. 

According to Yoruba philosophy of primordial existence, your 'being' that is, 'yourself' decided to come to this world through your parents; and you also made the choice of what you want to accomplish on this plant earth and once that is achieved, you then return to the abode of Olodumare. In this ontology, there is no remorse of life or nothingness or vanity upon vanity because that is the nature of human existence. 

In this philosophy, you only fulfill your own circle of life, your destiny. Your eventual transition is not to Nothingness but to Olodumare, your Creator. Olodumare is not 'Nothingness' in Yoruba philosophical theology. 

Happy birthday. I wish you all your heart desires. 

Segun Ogungbemi.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 1, 2023, at 3:11 AM, 'Ololade Bamidele' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:



TF at 70: A meditation on nothingness, By Toyin Falola  

TF at 70: A meditation on nothingness, By Toyin Falola Toyin Falola In nothingness is the secret of a new beginning, the audacity of knowledge to reinvigorate the metaphysics of life.

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