Proxygnosis

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You asked me to tell you

How it feels to be there,

And I wonder how often

My simple flare,

An innocent “savoir-faire,”

Led you to feel

What you cannot steal.

🪈

Try as I might,

Poetic insight,

To be metaphorically precise,

Would instill, indeed,

The wrong sense

That is no sense at all.

None can fall

Without falling.

🪈

Can a menu spoil an appetite?

It might.

Can the map dissuade

A wanderer from wandering?

It may.

Can a picture convey

A thousand words?

Even a thousand would not suffice.

None are quite as nice

As This.

🪈

Many a time,

I’ve felt that a rhyme

Could indeed mislead,

As a Hamelin flute,

If misconceived as the actual deed.

But what can I say,

As I sing and dance this way?

🪈

None to teach

Or convey.

At best, all try

To point the way.

🪈

But even this

Can lead astray.

🪈🪈🪈

Proxygnosis:

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The mistaken sense of direct knowing produced by possessing a description, representation, analogy, testimony, simulation for an experience or experience in general.

Analogs are not Experience.

—-

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world.”

Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation” (1964)

“Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have.”

Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation” (1964)