strived to eliminate chance

c}{imps 8 my ears

A presence is implied in an absence is implied in a presence. Beyond that circular comparison, Vizenor’s absence and presence bear meaningful comparison to Silko’s dichotomy between people who practice distinction and subtlety and those who minimize differences subconsciously; these are embodied in the archetypes of the native and the colonizer in Silko’s work. Within the context of Manifest Manners, an absence is not always indicative of a biological death, just as presence doesn’t really depend on a beating heart. Vizenor writes a great deal about silence, its different qualities are diverse, contradictory on the surface. He writes, “Nature has no silence” (Vizenor 52). This short sentence points to the presence all around. The world is speaking, nonstop. The absence is in our hearts and minds.
There is a part of me which is always already absent, and another part which makes sure I stay this way.
The antiself is a flat simulation of a person. They act not in accordance with their innermost being, but with performances dedicated to fulfilling the external roles ascribed to them. Looking to Baudrillard for more explanation, one finds that there is more wrapped into this holophrastic word than a mere definition of “the opposite of self.” One could continue in the vein of Baudrillard above: “–proving self by anti-self” and take from that transmutation between texts the notion that the anti-self when referenced in Manifest Manners must always already include the self as a reference point, and that the word antiselves is referencing this relationship of “proving by” which serves to further the principle that the real, and in Vizenor’s case the tribal real, has been subsumed in simulations and not allowed to die through its own absence, but forced to perpetuate itself from models which bear no significant relationship to tribal referents.
When Vizenor writes of the bankable simulation he references both the ability of certain persons to gain financially from their antiselves, but also the predictability of such behavior – being so neat that it can figuratively be set in rows. The term is employed with a tragic tone above.
Often used as compound with narrative; causal narrative. Causality is a way of viewing the events of the world. It is flawed due to…the chain of causality being infinitely long and branched, impossible to untangle; it is an illusion.
One of the most obvious causal narratives which may slip from our noticing is the Christian myth of heaven and hell. Due to our actions here on earth, we will either be rewarded or punished. This is nearly unavoidable in contemporary American culture, despite its recent tepid amelioration. Having this belief as a foundation for the mind creates a worldview which bears out causality as supreme, for after all, if we will be judged into eternity for our actions, thoughts, and hearts, surely to wrest control over our fates we must believe.
Intuition is developed through engagement with chance. Surprise has been a vital element of our evolution. It is both a response to chance and it is an affective response we are born with. Surprise has likely been with us since before we became distinctly human beings. Most creatures are capable of surprise.
I set mouse traps all over the place. Sometimes a mouse will be so clever that they will avoid the traps. I had one who would ignore the peanut butter I left out for him and eat only avocados. Today while I was putting some blankets away for the spring season, I found a mouse crushed to death under a precariously balanced beach chair leg. I could not have killed that mouse with a beach chair if I had trained Olympic style for the event. Chance took that mouse’s life, and chance is more powerful than all expectation.
What does it mean that we have strived to eliminate chance from our lives?