street fair

joel dittmer

1. We are the world, and nothing else is.

1.1 We are not alone in this world.

1.11 In fact, there are a number of us at this street fair together. There you can see that woman in blue shades winking at what may be her husband, holding their baby – maybe that's not the case, but that there is a woman (or someone) there and that there is a man in casual shorts that appear to have never been worn before holding a baby – well that is not in doubt; there are others here at this street fair; the baby is laughing staring slow-eyed at a man who has just tripped over a cable connecting power to one of the carnival rides. We may not realize it, but we are all here together if you consider the street fair a world, and all that which is in it a part of it.

1.12 To deny that one is in the world of the street fair would be to affirm that one is in some other world.

1.2 To be in a world is not to deny that there are other worlds; there could be other worlds, and there could just be this world.

1.21 One cannot deny that they are in a world, but cannot affirm that there are other worlds they could be a part of – what if there is only one world? It's like that carnival man (some call them “carnies”) who you only see in the dart-throwing-at-balloon booth, or the carnival man you see operating what's called the Ferris wheel; you see them only in those places, and so know that they are in this world. But there may be another world where they escape to, beyond the trailers at the perimeters of the street fair. They could be in another world, yes, but one does not know. One does know that they are part of this world – the street fair. The same is for you. You know you are part of this world, the street fair. But you do not know whether you are part of others, just as you do not know whether the carnival man is a part of others, as well.

1.211 I can imagine that you disagree here. Yes, the carnival man may be part of other worlds – e.g., he may be an accountant in another world – but you know yourself that you are not part of other worlds. It is only you here at the street fair, and not somewhere else as well, maybe at other times, or according to the logic of the other world. If you were part of this other world, then you would know, as you would be there, you would know.

1.212 But just as you don't know that the carnival man is in another world where he is an accountant – perhaps doing something actually engaging, like forensic accounting – as you only see him handing out darts to ambitiously playful aspirants of the pop-a-balloon game, why would you think that as you are witnessing yourself observing the carnival man in the booth handing out darts that you would also be privy to yourself witnessing the carnival accountant man investigating fraudulent financial reports in another world?

1.213 You are left at the street fair with the carnival man in a booth.

1.3 Where one is lost in their world, one can be found in their world by making sense of it. A world from within can never be a fully noumenal realm; that would lead to nihilism.

1.31 Maybe nihilism is true – that nothing absolute can ever be discovered. But if it were true, then that would mean nothing could be discovered within one's world one is living in. But one can discover at least some things within their world. Therefore, nihilism is false. Therefore, one can discover, know, all that is within one's world. I purchase, maybe steal, a corndog at the local Boy Scout fundraising stand, where they sell other food items, perhaps only Pepsi beverages, but also nachos. I will then be able to learn all there is about this street fair, not at first, of course, but over a dialectic of time.

1.32 A world with nothing is not a world. But if there is something, there is a world.

1.321 Not everything constitutes a world, though. For example, that particular stick of cotton candy is not a world. A cotton candy being eaten by a person is not a world.

1.322 In fact, a lot has to happen for a cotton candy to exist. It's not that a cotton candy exists, and then other things exist and then a world exists. No, lots of things exist (it may only have to be two, though) in order for cotton candy to exist.

1.323 We should remember that persons are no different. A person cannot exist without there already being a world for them to exist in. Worlds are not built of persons, added, then subtracted, and multiplied. Worlds exist, where person somehow then are there, but never before.

1.33 It follows that a something is more than just a constituent of a world. A cotton candy, a person, is not a something. There has to be more for there to be something, and so a world.

1.4 To find yourself outside of your world is impossible.

1.41 Finding yourself outside of something is finding yourself on the outside of where you were before. For example, you find yourself outside a group of friends parading the grounds of the street fair. This may be spatial, that for example, you caught your attention at one of the carnival men and now have been left behind. But more importantly, finding yourself outside of the group could be non-spatial; you are in fact in the middle of all of them, and yet have been ostracized by them for making a joke they did not like (or, for making no joke) – upon realizing this you find yourself on the outside of your group.

1.42 Maybe finding yourself outside of your world is like finding yourself outside of a group of friends.

1.421 But this cannot be the case. When you find yourself outside a group of friends, or outside a building (here, the spatial notion comes back into play), or outside of yourself in not feeling like yourself, you are still experiencing from the perspective of yourself to be outside. But to be outside of a world is to no longer be part of it; if you were to experience being outside of that world from another world would make you transcendent, like a god. But we are not gods.

1.422 I suspect that many of us at least some of the time think of death this way. We don't want to die, and we don't want to necessarily experience finding ourselves outside of death, experiencing what it is like to be on the other side, perhaps to recall that death moment.

1.4221 But things get worse than this, right? Because if death is like being no longer in a world, than one cannot find oneself in it, nor out of it. One does not experience anything.

1.4222 Maybe death is not like not being outside of the world that is yours. But if it is, then that means you no longer exist in a way that you can find yourself.

1.43 To never be able to find yourself in a world you existed in is to not know that you could have found yourself in that world.

2. The world is not language, but there is no world without language.

2.1 Of course there can be a world without language. Just imagine a world (more precisely, a universe, or an infinite set of universes where no communicative being ever existed).

2.11 The world without language is a lonely world without anything that is lonely. Yes, such a lonely world without any lonely things is possible, but then again?

2.12 An infinite set of universes, where all that ever existed was never lonely because loneliness was not possible for anything that existed, is possible. But what kind of universes are we talking about? What kind of worlds are we talking about? Everything that exists does so necessarily incapable of loneliness. Everything exists as by itself, yet somehow connected in only a way that God could comprehend. For to not be connected in a world is not to exist. But such connections without loneliness as a possibility are possible, it's just that only God could comprehend.

2.2 In our world, language is either an evolutionary by-product or an intrinsic part of the evolutionary process by which we exist. We are here because of language, or because we are here, language exists in our world. To suppose ourselves without language is to suppose we do not exist, not suppose we exist, but there is no language.

2.21 It can be misleading to say as above to say that we exist with or without language. No, it is more true to wonder whether we can exist as language-beings or not. And then the answer to that more correct question is almost obvious.

2.22 A mirror and its reflection are not two separate things that can be separated in such a way that we may ask: Can the mirror exist without its reflection and vice versa? No, we ask whether a mirror exists. And if we know there is a reflection, then we know there exists a mirror.

2.3 We in this world who use language – that is, all of us – use it in all kinds of ways that do not need to be tied down to how it was used by those and their environment who created it.

2.31 Once again, language is no Platonic thing.

2.32 Contrary to Chomsky and certainly Kant, there is nothing universal about it in terms of how we are built or who we are. Instead, we are linguistic existentialists.

2.321 Here at this street fair, I witnessed a carnival man being confronted by young teens who were upset that he conned the games in his favor. He seemed sincere in his reply to the youth - “You didn't like the game you played? You must have played it for over an hour. I think that if you played it that long, you got some fun out of playing it. Right?” The youth did not like this, and they did their best to topple his stand until the cops showed up. The cops chased them away, and then said to the carnival man, “Well, what do you expect? You probably should clean up – you know, take a shower – and then think about whether you should be doing this here.”

2.3211 The carnival man said, “Well, if no one here likes the games, I guess I won't offer them to play. I guess I'll leave this street fair.”

2.3212 I was thrown all over with reaction and emotion. I could see the coolness in the carnival man's posture, what he said, his language. I thought: Maybe the world is such that there are some people whose minds (maybe that's who they are?), whose brains are wired in such a way (maybe that's who they are?) that when they use language (or more properly, “language” as a verb) they are speaking, communicating, from a particular place, from themselves. Maybe some people never communicate (“language”-verb) anger or hatred or despair (or on the other side of the coin, empathy or love or hope). Almost all of us communicate through language all of these things because our brains, our minds have been made this way over time. But it is possible that there are some people who do not communicate these things precisely because they cannot, literally. This may, then, provide some insight into not just the being of God, but God's language, if God were to need language.

2.322 In so far as we are existentialists when we use language, we are free. Now, we may be fully determined. But it is in our being determined in the thoughts, feelings, and choices that we make that we use language. Maybe, for example, I'm a manipulative person, and I make choices to manipulate, and yet that I'm manipulative and make choices to manipulate are fully determined outside of me. Fine, I'm determined, but my existence and the free-seeming choices I make are such that they go hand in hand with how I use language. There is no Platonic and universal language that determines me, but instead something else that determines me, and hence in my using language, I speak freely according to who I am (even if that is determined). 

2.4 We are free-speaking beings determined in our world; we could not exist in any world without being such, nor could a world exist without there being such beings like us.

3. The world is art, science, philosophy, and nonsense. We cannot help but to be artists, scientists, philosophers, and non-sense makers.

3.1 Each of us is an artist, scientist, philosopher, and non-sense maker. Each of us is more than this, as well. In fact, a large portion of each of us is probably more than this.

3.2 It's not necessarily the case, but I suspect that most, if not all of us, are often incomplete artists, often misled scientists, mostly unwise philosophers, and uncanny proficient non-sense makers, not to mention that if we are not mostly these things, we are mostly other things which do not partake in art, science, or philosophy – maybe money or power, for example, or to be more human, control and hubris. All of us laugh, but how many of us prize it as consolation?

3.21 Here in this world, the street fair, there are plenty creating, displaying, discovering, trying, and laughing indeed.

3.22 Here in this world, the street fair, there is someone who has just seen for the first time a foe-friend, someone for who reconciliation is maybe a possibility – there is anger, confusion there. A recently divorced woman wanders to find a friend who has recently reached out to reconnect with. She thinks, “Why does it have to be so loud here? So many people being noisy” – really the noise is a blinding noise of laughing, crying, exhilaration, screaming, droned chatter, and calls from carnival people. There is laughter, but she does not hear this. A baby cries, but there is only noise. And then she sees her friend from a distance, somewhere past the local Lions Club hamburger stand. That bright red, slightly curly hair stands like a fire above all that no one sees above the spectacle. The divorced woman is delighted to recall a couple decades ago where they stole Allison and Brian's bicycles, rode through the moonlight to Brian's studios, took some of his paintings, and then ignited them with lighter fluid at a frequently visited cliff at the local quarry – The red-haired friend said, 'No, don't kick the remains off into the water – just let them sit there for others to see.'

*****

At this street fair, on this particular early September Saturday afternoon, I sincerely feel that I'm the only person here – that it is only I have who stood outside in this particular part of the fair, where I can see that a young man is anxiously searching through the crowd, maybe trying to find a particular loved one. As I observe him searching, I am less lonely. The aroma of smoke – whether it be cigar, cigarette, vape, or light fireworks – or of carnival food – whether it be grilled, deep-fried, or just sweet waffles – makes me less lonely. The man searching makes me less lonely; that I know to be observing him searching (even if he, in fact, is not) makes me feel less lonely.

I was once a carnival man. And in some ways, I am still one. I do not wish to speak of my times, though, as a true carnival man, a true “carnie.” Certainly I was over-educated as one, but I think I never quite fit in. Because I never got to really know my fellow road attraction travelers, I not only don't know whether I in fact didn't fit in, but also don't know whether I actually did fit in precisely because I didn't feel like I did.

I did see some spectacular things. For example, I recall a time in which one of the carnival workers died and that he always talked about how he if he died on the road, he would like to be on display in some way during the entirety of one of the days of the festival. We drew straws on who would decide how this would be pulled off. The one who got the short straw was rather nonchalant in his choice. It was that he was to be placed into one of the Ferris wheel chairs, alone. And from the opening spin of the day until the end of the night, he would ride the Ferris wheel. Although we all knew, no one noticed. The carnival man of over three decades rode the ride nonstop for nine hours and 37 minutes. 

*****

4.2 The reason one might think that the map between language and the world cannot be anything of significance is because language (although sometimes used poetically) is often used mundanely whereas the world can spark with contingencies, things that have never existed before.

4.21 In fact, the world just is contingency, and it is through language that we often unintentionally tame it as mundane.

*****

My tenure as a carnival man lasted only one summer and fall season. But there is a reason I still attend the local street fair, the one that I attended as a young child. It's just that I don't know what that reason is. I can't put it into words. I know it is not habit. I know it is not nostalgia. Maybe it has something to do with loneliness, a deep loneliness that comes only from being a human being.

*****

5.42 Although all of the world that can be described as true can be put together in a language in such a way that that language describes what is true, that which is magnificent in the world can never be described truthfully in, or by, language.

*****

I will never live in another world where the street fair I go to every year is the street fair I do, in fact, go to every year. This thought has always made me sad since I could think it. And I was sad because of its truth even before I could think it. Even if I could escape thinking it, I could never escape its truth. When I realize this, I feel just a little less lonely.

*****

6.312 This is why, opposed to science, God (opposed to the gods), ethics, even logic – certainly art – can never be made apparent to us as the truth through language of any kind, whether existent or even possible; language can never convey the deep truths – the deep truths may exist, but they are never expressible in language. Plenty can be said about them, but nothing can be said that makes what they are true.

*****

I've always wondered about what it would be like if the Ferris wheel was a ride where when you get to the top, instead of going back down, you stay in its circular motion but still maintain to go higher. Where would that higher place be without breaking the circle? Shortly after the first time I recall attending street fair (maybe I was four years old), my grandpa died. He was placed in a rectangular-like hole (a “grave”) in the ground. I asked my dad, “How can he be in heaven if he's down in the ground? Can down there be also up there?” 

*****

7. Maybe the carnival man at his wake knew the answer as he rode his Ferris wheel. For him the wheel was a ladder that when he arrived at the top, he just threw it away and could see the street fair aright for the first time.