Everything is the Locus of Ash: A New Concept of the Other and the Illusion of Becoming

    Philosophers and various intellectuals have used the term “the other” in various ways. It seems that most of the time they have some entity distinct from “the self” in mind when they think of something as “the other.” For some, there is a ‘racial other,’ for others there is a ‘sexual other,' both of which are usually other persons, other selves. I use “the other” here in a different, more philosophical way such that those previous usages will come to be seen as denoting what can be called ‘anothers.’

    For me, the other is not the distinct entity from the self. To put it generally, ‘that’ is not an other to ‘this.’ Rather, ‘that' is 'another,' if it is to be considered distinct. What I am proposing is a thorough re-thinking of the way we envision inter-entity dynamics, so that we have self, other and another, and not just self and other. But more importantly, I am proposing that we use the term 'the other' to denote something more proximate to the self than another. The other is between self and another, in short, as the liminality. 

    Now this makes sense most clearly when we consider the notion of becoming, which is the creative transformation in a single entity. In all becomings, ‘this’ becomes ‘that’ while maintaining some form of singularity. But the other is that which 'this' traverses when it becomes 'that.' It is in between pre-becoming self and post-becoming self. The other is traversed, but it is not in the fate or destiny of any thing to be within a particular process of becoming.

    However, it is not entirely satisfactory to say that the other is elusive. It is, after all traversed, and pervaded in the process of traversal. It is not even right to think of it as having an independent form, for it comes into relief only when it is pervaded by a self or a 'this.' When the color white becomes the color black, the color gray is traversed, but the singularity of that white entity also pervades it in full, for the white 'becomes' gray in the process of becoming black. Therefore, the other is not elusive in the sense of being outside the picture of becoming, in the sense of the color red being elusive in the becoming of white to black. It is rather the form that an entity does not take when becoming another in any given process. And, importantly, all processes are lacking in this regard; all processes contain liminal others that are traversed and pervaded but are not the end-points of becoming. 

    So, what attribute can we more reliably apply to the other? The liminal other, it seems, is not so much elusive, as much as it is fragile. This attribution of fragility makes it easier to conceive, for one. The other is easily broken apart in the flow of becoming. Just as a deceased body is broken apart when it assumes the form of ash and is made to flow in the river, the other is broken apart in the flow of becoming. 

    But here lies the significant problem. If the other, in becoming, is broken apart by the gentlest of flows, that of the most peaceful river of becoming, then how does becoming occur? To put it more vividly, if the ash is broken up by the gentle river, how then does it reassemble to take up form as another entity? How does white become black if in between is an other which is so fragile that it cannot possibly be taken up in the flow of becoming, and ‘become’ black?

    The only answer is to say that becoming is an illusion. When the self becomes an other, becomes ash, it gets thoroughly destroyed, and whatsoever emerges as a post-becoming self on the other side is only in appearance similar to the pre-becoming self, and in reality is something totally new, something constructed by a creative principle that is not the self and neither the ash [ie, the other].

    At the locus of the ash, or the locus of the other, is the creative principle of everything that is a product of becoming. That locus obtains whatever we think is the post-becoming entity in our reality. This locus, of course, is not a totally new entity, some kind of thing that has a special visible and sensible attribute. It is, in truth, all entities that are the locus of ash. I do not mean this to suggest pessimistically that all things will inevitably get destroyed and become ash, rather, from the locus of ash is the point, the mysterious point, from which all things are created, which is the very optimistic foundational attribute of a fundamental process of reality.