Deiktisch Oponthoud

(Dutch for Deictic Sojourn)

The Deiktisch Oponthoud or Deictic Sojourn is a key concept within Cathedral Theory, so some introductory explaining is required.

In Cathedral Theory all substance is denied existence, autrement dit: there is no Being. Ontology is the study of non-existent existence, a subdomain of narratology5Now, the awkward thing about the Event as a non-existent Happening is that it isn't a thing, it just happens. You see, it's very difficult even to talk or write about events as events i.e. happenings without falling into the abstraction reflex inherent to language. We are utterly logocentric in our use of language, and we only have words for things, not for happenings. This is very hard to get around in writing Cathedral Theory, one usually has to resort to perpetually metaphorical language, transferring the happening from one thing to another so it's meaning can be perceived in mid-air. In fact the only 'true' way to 'talk CT' is (Free) Lyricism....

Also: Space is the Place, i.e. all places are illusions based on temporal deformations of pure Extension (Space). A place 'seems to exist' temporarily: the default linear passage of time does not allow for any 'existence' but due to the happening of Clinamen 6Clinamen were first conceived as a singular thing by Roman philosopher Lucretius. Now, Clinamen aren't singular, they are always Many, and they surely aren't things. They happen like spiral deformations of the Passage of Time, presumably a consequence of a rather freakish accident during the near-eternity preceding the Bog Bang, - it really is much easier to just call Clinamen Clinamen and leave it at that, you know! the Grand Era of the Deictic Sojourn has commenced. Well, we are in the habit of having all these posh names 7 In Dutch "het Ondermaanse" is another beautiful name for Deictic Sojourn, beautiful because it carries in it the idea of "what is only visible through the moon's reflection of the Sun in eternal night"... for it, because our lifes depend on it, for the universe it's just a minor mishap...

The Life and Times of Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne is a beautiful and very entertaining metaphorical narration of the Deictic Sojourn. Finnigan's Wake by James Joyce is considered by most Cathedral Residents the Definitive Guide to the Deictic Sojourn 8 What do they know, they've only been here for less than 200 years?.

Basically what the Deictic Sojourn does, as long as we are in it, is to allow us to perceive things and places and point at them and call them names. Rather silly as time passing activity,since none of these things actually exist, but hey, that's what we do...

A place is somewhere within the Deictic Sojourn, here is not a place, unless you concede to 'here' being defined by the place there which is not-here. These loops of interchangeable recursive definitions are not 'meaningless' they serve the purpose of establishing sufficient time delay for the construction of the Deictic Sojourn. The Deictic Sojourn is the (fictional) place where you can point at things and call them names. All that is humanly intelligible can only be discussed within the framework of the Deictic Sojourn

Being is an auxiliary, a mental construct required to make the reality of  what is happening humanly intelligible. All that we know (assume we know) as 'being' is happening, as we speak. No thing is real. There is no such thing as a thing-in-itself, existing outside of time. Any thing is always happening, so 'it' has a beginning and an end. When something ends it does not magically become the-thing-that-was, it merely succumbs into primordial Difference, its identity ends.