“‘Worlding,’ as an active-force gerund, would turn nouns (world) to verbs (worlding), thus shifting the taken-for-granted and normal life-forms of the market and war into the to-be-generated and remade.” [1]
If just three little letters (i-n-g) can do that to world, think of what they could do to my life!
I quite fancy shifting from the taken-for-granted to the to-be-generated, from a normal life-form to a remade life-form (in manner of Cyborg, perhaps?) Could gerunding effect a magical transformation in the duck-rabbit? There was only one way to find out. I decided to gerundize Tuesday and see what happened. Here’s how it played out.
6.2.15
Rude-awakening, alarm-resetting, snoozing, dreaming, into-pillow-burying; into-space-staring; out-of-it-snapping; swiping, checking; scrolling, tapping. Caffeinating, Prozacing, toasting, peanut-buttering, toothpasting, soaping. Knickering, bra-ing, jean-and-T-shirting. Sock and booting. Coromandeling. Kissing; leaving; driving, singing, parking, walking, sitting, printing. Slow-deep-breathing. Hall-small-talking. Quick lipsticking; shy throat-clearing. Professing (Professor-ing?), holding-forthing; some-back-tracking; awkward-pausing; repeating; listening; nodding; smiling; nodding; coaxing; nodding; breaking.
Resuming; bomb-throwing; observing.
Who likes “worlding”? Dramatic-pausing … glance-exchanging .. much eye-rolling.
Group bonding! Mutual admiring! Brief-up-wrapping. Fond farewelling.
YouTubing — hasty-minimizing! figurative hand-holding; driving. His ‘n’ Her-ing, mondegreening; wanna-go-homing, blinking, weeping. Sniffling; wiping, parallel parking; disembarking; checking; cursing; parallel parking; checking; cursing; parallel parking; checking; cursing. Hands-throw-up-ing. Good-enough-ing. Door-unlocking; boots-kick-offing; fridging; tea-ing; reading; Keatsing; facebook-faffing; no-no-no-ing. Back-on-tracking; enough-is-enoughing. Fondest reading, author-loving.
Missive-composing; x and o-ing. Tattoo-plotting; plot-tattooing. Duck-rabbiting. Rabbit-ducking. (Pheasant-plucking? Dirty minding.)
Door-banging! Son-homecoming! How-was-schooling; soon up-giving. Sitting; hunching; mess-ignoring. Self-reproaching. Cock-a-snooking. Blogging, faffing; faffing, blogging. Gas-bill-paying; Lord’s-name-in-vaining.
Imprisoned-frog-ventriloquising; wining, cheesing, on-counter-leaning; table-setting; wine-up-topping; noodling; kids-on-scooter-chasing. Tipsy-running. Toddler-dodging. Daughter’s-sweaty-forehead-stroking. Warm-bath-running. Orangetting. Mung-bean-salad-won’t-be-making. Flossing, brushing, story-telling. Extricating. (Inventive stalling.)
Lolling, composing, faffing, yawning, downward-dogging, sofa-lounging. Voguing (not that kind): page-flipping; bedding (not that kind): supining. Sadding, blubbing, God-forsaking. Lorazepaming? Self-buck-upping. Voguing, Voguing, slow-off-drifting. Slip-awaying, gerund-dreaming.
***
So, there you have it. My entire day gerunded. And? You know what? It didn’t make a blind bit of difference. I know! The duck-rabbit awoke this morning completely un-remade, just the same old taken-for-granted-normal-life-form-duck-rabbit. If anything, it was a little worse for wear for being so well-and truly gerunded. Complete and utter fail. What a bloody waste of time. Thanks for nothing, Heidegger!
Notes
[1] Rob Wilson. “Worlding as a Future Tactic” in The Worlding Project: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization, Ed. Christopher Leigh Connery and Rob Wilson (Berkeley, Cal: North Atlantic Book, 2007), 212. We read this article for my final seminar on fictional worlds this week.