Reading Wittgenstein
I think what he means to say is each thing speaks for itself,
and can be known by its history, and, the language we use each day,
is the best explanation of our History that we have on hand.
He continues, explaining that each day has its own menu,
but then he goes on and on, as weather moves, yet does not go away.
History of an Inner Life
But for now, it is out into a night which is less than too anything,
so I leave the sweater on the veranda.
Its weave reminds me of the German seamstress I met on the bus,
who reminds me of Einstein’s mustache, our relative notion of history,
each mistake I have ever made, the needles of time piercing my skin –
and all of this is what counts as an inner life.
Time is a God
History is the measure of time, and,
in the measuring of time, the discrete abstractions,
seconds – minutes – hours – the language of time
must be grasped like stones, quiddities, almost persons,
for history without pauses is Infinite Time, that grand abstraction,
refusing to be tamed by our notions of fairness –
acting like a God.
Poetry on the run 
OK, wow Ron–I don’t know how to talk about this one without talking (on and on) as does Wittgenstein. I never read Logico-Tractacus (isn’t that what he called his seminal work?), but I get the gist. I’m already deep enough into linguistics that I believe reading him might make me feel stoned.
So I’ll move on to History of an Inner Life (in the interest of keeping my thoughts here brief…..)
My favorite line here (in light of relativity, Einstein, and history) is “the needles of time piercing my skin”. Isn’t it JUST like that. Just exactly like that, when we turn our attention to our past selves, our former silliness, our foibles, our wrong turns. “and all of this is what counts as an inner life”–Nailed it. Too sadly true. For me, anyway.
Time is a God:
Again, dictionary time for Holly: Quiddity has 2 separate meanings according to my cursory research. One of them resembles Wittgenstein’s assertions (as far as I know them): “the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other”. Pure philosophy, that first definition.
But the second definition I found is this: “an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections”. I nearly saw a river in ‘Time is A God’ (maybe the Tao rushing through my addled brain?). Because quiddities comes after “stones” and before “almost persons”, I think that’s where the raging torrent came in.
And this isn’t even touching the depth of this third part. I sometimes hate how much I know about “history” given the strangeness and ungraspability of ‘Time’ itself. I see exactly what you (seem to my mind) to be getting at. History is the measure of time (seconds, minutes, hours), and the “discrete abstractions” which are those measures (seconds, minutes, hours) are all mixed up with the ideologies and creeds, which are themselves the product of human striving AND are themselves mixed up with the “seconds, minutes, hours”, which are all the “discrete abstractions”.
I think only Poetry can get at a Theory of Everything, that the physicists (and Wittgenstein or Einstein) cannot grasp.
The grand abstraction (Infinite Time) does not cater to our notions of fairness. Refuses to be tamed by our notions of fairness. Funny how capital-T truth is the same way, in that it “refuses to be tamed” and seems to have the liquid posture of the flow of the river I see with its stones and “almost persons”.
Which all takes me back to the first part where the speaker says (of Wittgenstein), that he goes on on “as weather moves, yet does not go away”.
So Taoist!
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Thank you Holly, I wish I could say I understand Wittgenstein, or any of the others, but I cannot. I once thought of being a philosopher, but it turned out I was ill-equipped for the discipline, I just didn’t understand much of what I read or heard, I wish I had studied poetry instead.
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