On is an all-encompassing concept that attempts to encapsulate or become an emblem of culture and the behavior patterns of humans. On is the force that governs when we learn a language or change behavior when we enter a courtroom. On is the act of self-subjectification. It is the word that symbolizes the method and characteristics of an induction, the inductee, and the institution.
On is the “natural” human urge to build cities, start businesses, schools, hospitals. On is the discipline and the disciple. On is the natural human desire to categorize. On is the human itch to build bricks either conceptual or concrete in order to build more and more. On is the urge to produce knowledge. On is knowledge and not wisdom. On is the tower but not the tree. On is the oil well but not the oil. On is the jack pump extracting oil that is piped or shipped or driven to the refinery and transformed into gasoline, plastic, gum, Legos. On is the desire to build such mechanism and, of course, the mechanism itself and all of its byproducts.
On is the book being read by the student in the classroom while the teacher rambles on with words only to be understood as a result of reading and regurgitating the words in the pages of the book. On is the reading, the person understanding itself as a student, the person understanding itself as the teacher, and also the dynamic created as a result of those people’s understanding of themselves.
On, in a reductive sense, is the Heideggerian calculative, the Nietzschean apollonian, and the Foucauldian subject in a quasi-panoptic construction. On is the monolith that feeds the passively ingesting masses, the masses that consume this aviary regurgitation and the environment that makes this transaction possible. On is ‘being-with-others’ and the prescriptive condition created thereof. On is what makes language hold its baggage, what charges it with partiality and infinite biases. On is the master operator of all stealthy mechanisms that legitimize specific kinds of actions, behaviors, attitudes, protocols, emotions, and excuses over others.
On is what’s at stake in a translation, the risk of changing or losing information. On is what contextualizes an object and at the same time deprives that object of a context. On is the comfort of the hometown and the dreadful alienation experienced in a foreign country. On was born in the cavernous womb, where humanity made its first marks.
On Gods and Myths 