Negative Capability

NEGATIVE CAPABILITY, Domus Kaotica; KHAOS Class X sub E

Dav0r -4°(6°) January 14, 2010

"Even with all the king's horses and all the king's men, they could never ever find us again."

Negative Capability is a term first defined by poet John Keats in a letter to his brother way back in the 1800s. Here's what he said:

“I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

Poets will usually enter Negative Capability when they are waiting for that next source of inspiration to hit. Not all of them perform Negative Capability, as some decide to just write and write, or write when they feel inspired. Those who do tend to become other things, they become objects, animals, plants, other people, and things we can't even think of. In other words, while they wait, they slide out of themselves, they throw aside their Self, and they enter into other things. Through this entering, they grow to understand their subject, they learn their subject by being that subject. They wipe their psyche completely clean, obliterating all other possibilities aside from the one they want to become. In this act, they turn into that thing, losing themselves completely to being anything other than.

Through this Negative Capability, we are able to transcend rationality, or live in transrationality, and through that, live more closely to the instinctive part of us, the part that lays thinly like a membrane over the khaos underneath. It is like a matrix where, if we could only break through the membrane, we could grip reality by the strings, we could pull it over us, and become whatever we wish at any time. We could even become no-thing.

The membrane is what separates us from the final step that allows us to break through and grasp the fluid energy outside and around us, to change things both inwardly and outwardly. This membrane we set up on ourselves from the moment we are born, maybe even before that (think of what your mother consumes and places within her body, as well as your father when they were consumating), solidifying the barrier between us and the potential we could have in this world to change everything. The more we allow it to solidify, the thicker the membrane becomes, the harder it is for us to break through.

Why would something like the membrane exist? That's a very good question. There are many answers that people could draw, and I have no answer. It is something that one needs to figure out for themselves, and destroying the barrier that keeps you from the sweet fluid of Negative Capability is probably the best way to find out, for then you can become like them/it/something and find out.

Why would someone even want this? Can you imagine what it is like to be in such a state as to be able to change, at will, and be impossible to the ordinary mind? You could outpace the fastest runner, outwit the quickest thinker, outlift the strongest man. You can be anything, everything, nothing, and more. There is knowledge you could tap into that is forbidden to so many in this world, because they cannot touch it, for their own membrane regulates and filters what they can and cannot know. You can touch others who are stuck within their membranes, truly touch them and not just slide your membrane against theirs. You can feel, truly feel, and you can cry and mean it, and you can love and mean it. You can experience something genuine for once in your life, and understand why. You can sit on a grassy hill, watch the sun set, and feel complete if you so wish. With Negative Capability as your tool, anything is possible.

Don't take my word for it. You can ask a poet who practices Negative Capability, see what their thoughts are on becoming other things, if it inspires them, touches them, gives them something more than they had before when they were working on their last work. Ask them what it is like to subliminate their individual assumptions and their persona, making themselves into a negative, allowing them to become sympathetically able to enter into “uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts” without running into any premature and oversimplifying “rational” closures upon them. It is the very depths of BEING in every sense of the word, and it is powerful, as anyone could attest should they work with it extensively. It is the obliteration and replacement of oneself to be something else, to walk in the shoes of others. Shapeable Shapelessness. Positive capability of negative knowledge.

So where does this take us? Well, ultimately, Negative Capability can bring amazing benefit. It can also cause ruin. It can do anything, because it is infinite. The only difficulty is breaking through the membrane, the barrier that keeps us that one atom away from our minds exploding, our souls screaming in passion, our bodies pissing and shitting themselves uncontrollably from the feeling. Negative Capability is exactly what it is, and is exactly what it claims to be.

It is potential to hold everything that is and is not in your hands, and cry tears of joy.