Knots Ronald Laing 1970
W O R L D O F MAN
Editor: R. D. Laing
KNOTS
KNOTS
R. D . L A I N G
VINTAGE
A Division
BOOKS
of Random
House,
New
Copyright © 1970 by The R. D. Laing Trust
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in the United States by Pantheon Books in 1971, and in England by Tavistock Publications.
ISBN: 0-394-71776-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-136109
Manufactured in the United States of America
Vintage Books Edition, April 1972
The patterns delineated here have not yet been classified by a Linnaeus of human bondage. They are all, perhaps, strangely, familiar.
In these pages I have confined myself to laying out only some of those I actually have seen. Words that come to mind to name them are: knots, tangles, fankles, impasses, disjunctions, whirligogs, binds.
I could have remained closer to the 'raw' data in which these patterns appear. I could have distilled them further towards an abstract logico-mathematical calculus. I hope they are not so schematized that one may not refer back to the very specific experiences from which they derive; yet that they are sufficiently independent of 'content', for one to divine the final formal elegance in these webs of maya.
April 1969
R.D.L.
1
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
1
They are not having fun.
I can't have fun if they don't.
If I get them to have fun, then I can have fun with them.
Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.
I might get fun out of finding out why they're not.
I'm not supposed to get fun out of working out why they're not.
But there is even some fun in pretending to them I'm not having fun finding out why they're not.
A little girl comes along and says: let's have fun.
But having fun
Editor: R. D. Laing
KNOTS
KNOTS
R. D . L A I N G
VINTAGE
A Division
BOOKS
of Random
House,
New
Copyright © 1970 by The R. D. Laing Trust
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in the United States by Pantheon Books in 1971, and in England by Tavistock Publications.
ISBN: 0-394-71776-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-136109
Manufactured in the United States of America
Vintage Books Edition, April 1972
The patterns delineated here have not yet been classified by a Linnaeus of human bondage. They are all, perhaps, strangely, familiar.
In these pages I have confined myself to laying out only some of those I actually have seen. Words that come to mind to name them are: knots, tangles, fankles, impasses, disjunctions, whirligogs, binds.
I could have remained closer to the 'raw' data in which these patterns appear. I could have distilled them further towards an abstract logico-mathematical calculus. I hope they are not so schematized that one may not refer back to the very specific experiences from which they derive; yet that they are sufficiently independent of 'content', for one to divine the final formal elegance in these webs of maya.
April 1969
R.D.L.
1
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
1
They are not having fun.
I can't have fun if they don't.
If I get them to have fun, then I can have fun with them.
Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.
I might get fun out of finding out why they're not.
I'm not supposed to get fun out of working out why they're not.
But there is even some fun in pretending to them I'm not having fun finding out why they're not.
A little girl comes along and says: let's have fun.
But having fun