33/40: Thisness. Haecceity

Yesterday one of my meditation group friends showed me a philosophy book by Grayling and as I flipped through it, the word haeccity jumped out at me. Letting go of thatness for thisness

Like Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter are unusually intense seasons for church choirs. We were preparing 10 songs last night at choir practice for coming weeks. I am also singing on Good Friday with another choir so there are 7 more I am practising for that.

I have become rather fond of this very brief song, a 16th century piece by a composer with the unlikely name of Osbert Parsley. It is one of doubtless hundreds of settings that have been composed over the centuries for This is the Day or in Latin Haec Dies:

Hæc dies quam fecit Dominus:

exultemus et laetemur in ea.

This

I found a little interview with A.C. Grayling about his book on 3 millenia of philosophy. The book didn’t interest me much per se, but thisness did.

A ‘haecceity’ (from the Latin, haecceitas, which translates literally as ‘thisness’) is a certain kind of property. In broad outline, a thisness is a primitive, particular, nonqualitative property of an individual, i.e. the property of being a specific individual (or, perhaps, the property of being identical with a specific individual).

To clarify: although it is typical to see a thisness described as the property of being identical with an individual, it is not merely the property of being self-identical, which all individuals exemplify trivially; it is a special kind of property that is uniquely exemplified by its bearer. And so, for any individual x, since the property being (identical with) x is both uniquely exemplified by x and essential to x, so x’s thisness is a nonqualitative individual essence of x.

Haecceity and Thisness by David Ingram

Philosophers! Am I right? Did that clarify thisness for you?

it is a special kind of property that is uniquely exemplified by its bearer.

This.

The way this person and this person alone is in the world. The delight they take in what they love and, when you see it even only something as they do, how it changes forever after how you see that beloved ‘thing’ or idea.

The essence, the beingness of this person alone.

Isn’t it strange that the world has over 8 billion humans and yet each one is uniquely fascinating in their particular way?

This Is The Day

Another day has dawned in this part of the world, bright with promise. It is already different from every day that has been till now. It has a distinct haecceity though it is not yet clear how.

Each day arises from the night and moves tranquilly through its 24 hours, on this planet anyway, and cedes gracefully to a new day.

Today in moment after moment of thisness. What will it be? What will I learn from it?

Which the Lord Hath Made

The question of God, a Creator, can be too bound up in religious trauma for many to be entertained.

Here and now, it isn’t really about who you believe created the day or whether you believe anyone created it at all.

The reality of the day is such that it exists and arrived from somewhere.

It was ‘created’, it emerged, it bloomed. Who can know or understand how it got here?

It’s essentially mysterious and awe-inspiring.

We Will Rejoice and Be Glad

If the previous bits weren’t deal-breakers for you, perhaps this is the part that has you walking away from this and shaking your head.

What is there to rejoice in today? How can we be glad when the suffering in the world is immense?

One of the many weird things about human existence is that we are constantly offered a kaleidoscope mix of disparate parts of reality. Tragic, distressing, catastrophic parts co-existing with parts of the greatest beauty, delight, fulfillment. People are dying today and they are being born. People are experiencing mind-numbingly horrific forms of loss and they are having what feels like the best possible day of their life.

Both extremes and everything in between.

If you are privileged enough to have an internet connection available through which to access this and a device, quite likely your own, to read it on, there is a good chance that there is a lot to rejoice and be glad about in your life.

Being alive today. Having the facility of being able to read, to enjoy the play of words on a page, coming from who knows where. Food to eat. Water to drink. A place to live. People who love you. Thisness to revel in. Once you start making a list, it tends to lengthen, describing aspects of the thisness of the day perhaps you don’t often notice.

And Be Glad In It

This day.

This world, this fragile tiny speck in a universe that goes much further than the mind can grasp, yet which encompasses its dizzying array of animals, plants, inorganic stuff, as well as everything that is not material and yet it compelling in its thisness.

This person, perhaps one of those you hold most dear in the world, whose thisness will continue to be a source of wonder to you as long as you hold them in your heart and mind, because persistent of thisness requires neither physical presence nor even the person to be still in the world.

I am glad in this day.

I am glad in this world.

I feel privileged beyond words to know the most special people in my life. They make me laugh, smile, but mostly have changed the fabric of my life by their thisness.

Haecceity.