"Meaning is in its use." -Wittgenstein
The meaning of Panoosh appears directly through its use; thus, it would be useless to try and outline "what is IS." Because it's everything, and it's nothing.
Words, gestures, expressions come alive only within this Language Game- this culture- this Environment.
Why do we say Panoosh is a "made-up" word? Aren't all words made up in correlation with concepts and things in external reality?
Communication is impossible lest we all agree to agree on certain topics, like colors.
Enter another country and you will experience different customs and laws governing interactions. Upon Panooshing, you agree to operate under the local laws of Chance, Cut-up, Re-invention, and Knowledge Expansion.
Wittgenstein has discussed "private knowledge," in reference to forms of communication only understood by the private users.
Picture a solitary individual, born and raised isolated from the laws of language- how would he/she invent a language? As with Cavemen, inventing one would involve inventing MEANING- and that's exactly what they did.
Or imagine a man who wrote "S" in his diary every time he felt a sensation. This sensation has no neutral expression, and "S" cannot be defined in words. The only judge of whether "S" is used correctly is the inventor of "S."
Panooshing is a sensation, an activity, an experience, and a way of moving about life. Each Panoosher holds a different idea of what it means to Panoosh; but overall, we can agree that its function (as a verb) is to help reconcile the complex outer world with our inner creativity and desire to break out of the general laws (passed down to us through convention/society) and create our own.
Of course, even as I write, I am making use of agreed-upon concepts, but what if I...
pause, stop
destruction of a sentence as it happens
speak in pitter p a t t e r
sunglasses high upon head,
smiling, with poetry in eyes
moving above the clouds and landing back in the sentence I just left off at.
That is to say, Panooshing is not mere "randomness," but rather a purported, directed effort to jump out of the language and laws that entangle us - even if for an hour and a half - and return to society with a greater appreciation of one's own essence.
To put it bluntly, what counts is not what is "true" or "right" (or independent of humans in some universal form), but instead what we can get away with - or get others to accept.
What does Panoosh mean to you?
In the upcoming class, the boundaries of language do run deep, so a majority of our time will be spent doing only body movement as a form of expression.
To rest upon Schopenhaur for a bit- Art is an attempt to communicate to an audience a certain existential angst. Panooshing is the acknowledgment of this angst, but the artful destruction of everything that commonly causes that angst.
Vague city?
Perhaps.
You see, a lot of living can be fundamentally frustration-filled: a mind game with yourself- painful, and confusing. Panooshing seeks to multiply the spontaneous, playful, and unique parts of ourselves that lie dormant underneath a rhetoric of JOBS, FUTURE, PLANS, LABELS, GOALS, STABILITY, and PURPOSE.
Will it be successful? YES, according to your SUCCESS label. Or NO, if you keep your shades comfortably on.
What if the purpose is that there is no purpose, but then even then that is a purpose, so instead we say Cheese.
