The "it" God

[eighthobstruction]

This is nothing about religion.
Sorry that this will be a mess, but I am dyslexic, (and some might say I suffer from mind dispraxia)

The "it" I refer to in the title can be found in phrases like "it was all too much" or "it stands to reason" or "it is the same everytime". This like saying "it" is something up in the sky,something all around us which has effect .This is like "it" being part of a mechanism, a cog, a wheel, a gear that has become involved in our lives "Oh it's just dreadful", and follows us around playing havoc or doing positive things for us, "It" is ubiquitous , a pencil, a mountain, another planet, the universe, or Time itself - but, it can also be something or be used as something much more central to our Being; something beyondd just a noun substitute. "It" can be something which dogs us all our lives (a complicated soup) - Or it can be something we pluck out of the air and say "It is a wonderful day" - or something like a hex or terrible complication to our predicament.

I tend to use the word "it" quite a lot to describe the shipping container of oddity that follows me around. Otherwise I'd have to say : "that feeling of Being that is like sleeping in a delapidated dark shed on a dusty moldy bed that is on my right shoulder, while academic thought police throw commas at my eyes which look like bent crows [the commas], as I have utterly banal random ideas about art I will likely never make" .....Now, you wouldn't want me saying that everytime, would you?.....much easier just to say IT....

[french frank]

[It] is like sleeping in a delapidated dark shed on a dusty moldy bed

Oh, eighth, I didn't realise. Would you like a handout? It could be arranged.

[smittims]

Gulp! I need time to read that again before I decide if I can say anything in reply. But it (sorry) is thought-provoking. Thanks for posting .

[johncorrigan]

A recent iteration, eighth?

[Serial_Apologist]

"It" is (I understand) one way of explaining the unnameable, or that which passes beyond rational one-at-a-time processes of intellection most religious traditions confuse with faith. I think that is what was behind Beckett's title formulation. Whether we like it or not, the stream of impressions constituting the abundance of sensory moments selectively vetted for usefulness in our everyday practical living makes up a phenomenal impact on our lives, bodies and environment - a totality of which the largest impact is inaccessible to the conscious mind while at the same time being continuously addressed and responded to at the unconscious level through bodily and brain functions. This is not to advocate compulsive attentiveness to how we, or rather our physio-psychological response mechanisms, are processing all this at each and every micro-second of our waking lives (our inner capacities can cope as well at this when awake as when sleeping!) but to try and organise our lives in such a way as to promote and incentivise greater awareness, thus reminding ourselves that this is who we really are: like the rest of life beyond categories and identities (which, like maps and menus, are as ephemeral as pavement art), so that we see categories (and our mind's propensity for dividing reality into them) as useful means for agreeing common viewpoint objectives in a natural world that operates through feedback mechanisms we call laws of nature, but not pointers to that Beyond some might call God but I prefer to call "it".

Faith is the literal mute point. We are a part of nature - though many religions promulgate the idea we are somehow not. Indeed acknowledging the latter while seeing through divisive categorical illusions would be seen as a precondition for making for a sustainable world in which technology would be driven not by competition but for more time.

[french frank]

'It' serves a grammatical function as 'the non-referential subject of a verb or impersonal statement, expressing action or a condition of things simply, without reference to any agent'. There needs to be a word for it, and it's 'it'. The earliest and most recent examples quoted by the OED are:

Old English: "Swylc swa..sie fyr onælæd & þin heall gewyrmed, & hit rine & sniwe & styrme ute."

2004: "Chuff me, it's freezing."

[Joseph K]

How goes it, 8th-o?

[eighthobstruction]

OH thanks for asking....I am trying to combat 'stuff' by being creative....I'm going through all the sraps of paper, backs of envelopes, jotters, shorthand notebooks etc and turn them into something....(but still can't stop heavy 'stuff' 2hrs in early morning)
May I just say to folk....if you ever get the chance to do some pottery....or play with clay....do it, it is a marvellous form of creation open to all -good therapy....the best....i.e you may need access to a kiln or art group....

[Joseph K]

OH thanks for asking....I am trying to combat 'stuff' by being creative....I'm going through all the sraps of paper, backs of envelopes, jotters, shorthand notebooks etc and turn them into something....(but still can't stop heavy 'stuff' 2hrs in early morning)
May I just say to folk....if you ever get the chance to do some pottery....or play with clay....do it, it is a marvellous form of creation open to all -good therapy....the best....i.e you may need access to a kiln or art group....

Best wishes in combating stuff.

[Serial_Apologist]

OH thanks for asking....I am trying to combat 'stuff' by being creative....I'm going through all the sraps of paper, backs of envelopes, jotters, shorthand notebooks etc and turn them into something....(but still can't stop heavy 'stuff' 2hrs in early morning)
May I just say to folk....if you ever get the chance to do some pottery....or play with clay....do it, it is a marvellous form of creation open to all -good therapy....the best....i.e you may need access to a kiln or art group....

It would seem I misinterpreted your meaning then, eighth!

[eighthobstruction]

It would seem I misinterpreted your meaning then, eighth!

No you were right first time....I was after information and perspectives....I was wanting to use "it" in another piece of writing I was doing - but realised that most people would not understand the "it" I would be writing about....
What is stopping it - it is complicated - I pay homage to it - it hurts - it is a wonder - if only it would go away - it isn't anything we should worry about....
But also yes I do suffer from invasive thoughts and ruminations (as many do)....and JK cottoned on to that...

[Pulcinella]

Tell me about it.

[gurnemanz]

'It' serves a grammatical function as 'the non-referential subject of a verb or impersonal statement, expressing action or a condition of things simply, without reference to any agent'. There needs to be a word for it, and it's 'it'. The earliest and most recent examples quoted by the OED are:

Old English: "Swylc swa..sie fyr onælæd & þin heall gewyrmed, & hit rine & sniwe & styrme ute."

2004: "Chuff me, it's freezing."

Also called "dummy subject", in that there is no semantic content and it functions only a syntactic place holder. A sentence seems to need a subject as in "it is raining" where nothing is actually doing the raining. Likewise German "es regnet", French "il pleut",. Interestingly, Italian doesn't need a subject, where "piove" suffices.

[Pulcinella]

Also called "dummy subject", in that there is no semantic content and it functions only a syntactic place holder. A sentence seems to need a subject as in "it is raining" where nothing is actually doing the raining. Likewise German "es regnet", French "il pleut",. Interestingly, Italian doesn't need a subject, where "piove" suffices.

Isn't it (sorry!) more that the subject pronoun (it, in this case) is subsumed in the verb form in Italian: je suis, ich bin, but only sono, with io sono merely used for emphasis?

But when 'it' is the object, Italian does need to use something: give it to me (dammelo).

[french frank]

the subject pronoun (it, in this case) is subsumed in the verb form in Italian

And not just Italian. The Spanish equivalent to piove is llueve - an interesting example of the phonology of the two languages. I think "...& hit rine & sniwe & styrme" probably should be on the Stormy Weather thread.