The Aporic Paradox of PNSD

Before we return to Post-Navigation Stress Disorder (PNSD), I'd like to alight briefly on the subject of Kobrin's late work, whose nihilistic thrust—nay, telos?—Alex insightfully addressed.

Translation is a delicate endeavor, especially in the field of labyrinthology, where novel notions often run amok. In the Szeged Lectures, we encounter a term first developed by Kobrin. This term is rarely used today because its import may be as unnavigable as Kobrin’s own structures, but etymologically, it appears to be an elusively simple compound formation. Nemegyközpont: “no one center,” reads the literal translation. But its sense? Some translators have interpreted this enigmatic term as “no center” or “all center.” Others have taken the term as a verb phrase navigational in meaning: “one does not reach a center.” Yet others have deciphered it architecturally: “one does not build a center.” I will leave it to Alex to illuminate the work and workings of Kobrin. But, before he sheds more light on Kobrin’s mysterious and maddening ways, I must note that in the margins where this term appears in the Szeged Lectures manuscripts, Kobrin scratched out what seems to a be a koan from early Buddhist labyrinth meditation: “If all is center, then there are infinite centers and no centers. How do you look at the moon?” (Alex, do you know the source of this koan?)

The paradox we observe in this koan, and, of course, in Kobrin’s late efforts, leads us back to the problem of PNSD. To understand the two primary symptoms of PNSD—navigatorial dysbasia and suspended navigation—I should cite, once again, Yves Cruemer in The Encountered Labyrinth: “In the labyrinth, the aporia of the center is not an intellectual conceit. It is a real condition, felt in the labyrinth and long after navigation has subsided.” A passage from Hilda Doolittle’s Trilogy is germane here as well:

O, do not look up

into the air,

You who are preoccupied

in the bewildering

sand-heap maze

of present-day endeavor;

you will be not so much frightened

as paralyzed with inaction,

To look only to the sun, to the transcendent, to a divine and providential without, is to neglect the immanent, the ground, the earth, the divine and providential within wherein we forge meaning. This is the dark heart of navigation: the aporia of the center, in which the walker, lost in labyrinth as form, becomes lost in the labyrinth as endeavor. To look only to the center, the transcendent, to the quintessential form of the labyrinth, is to neglect the way, not in and not out, but simply the lived path of navigation. Navigatorial dysbasia, at its root, originates then in what I call “primary aporia,” being lost in the labyrinth as form. Suspended navigation, at its core, emerges in what I call “secondary aporia,” being lost in the labyrinth as endeavor, the far more dangerous entanglement from which one cannot be extricated by physical egression. But the secondary aporia is truly and thornily paradoxical, as one must wisely navigate the razor-thin boundaries of constructive and destructive secondary aporia.

"Primary Aporia," John K., recovered from Ribbon Reef Navjournal

On the one hand, we at the CLP, especially as Neo-Recursivist Navigators, understand secondary aporia, being lost in the labyrinth as endeavor, to be, in large part, vital to the nature of purposive navigation. In other words, to navigate, one must fundamentally become lost in the process of navigation. (Being physically lost is given to all navigation, of course. Being lost irretrievably causes deficient navigation, which is the onset of primary aporia and thus navigatorial dysbasia.) Yet, if we wander too far—and who is to demarcate definitively the edges of these territories—we enter the metalabyrinth, marking the onset of secondary aporia, where real and unreal blur and fold into each other.

"Secondary Aporia," John K., recovered from Ribbon Reef Navjournal

What, then, is the way out of secondary aporia? It is, precisely, to reject, at least when trapped in the metalabyrinth, all notions of “the way out.” Italian labyrinth phenomenologist Horatio di Gallini calls this “the phenomenological reduction modulated to achieve the radical astonishment carried out through prepredicative acts of navigation.” Dense, language, to be sure, but di Gallini is driving at a practical philosophy. The inherent ambiguity of the labyrinth, its aporia, is not a problem to be solved (the nerve center of PNSD) but an ontological condition to be embraced. In other words, we can counter destructive secondary aporia only by tearing down the scaffolding of all that we predicate the labyrinth to be.

And how do we tear down this scaffolding? How do we fight through this most hazardous species of PNSD? Working thousands of miles away from di Gallini’s Umbrian desk is Dr. Izokawi, whose meditational regimen, while not traditionally phenomenological in origin, provides us the very methods to achieve the radical astonishment to cure PNSD. His methods I turn to next, and these methods will lead us to the very important domain of Asian labyrinthology.

Post-Navigation Stress Disorder

"And, young man, depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go, you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments..."

— Robinson Crusoe

We at the CLP are elated to learn that Alex has been released from the Pongo de Mainique Infirmary. In fact, all of our absences from CLP have been fraught with peril. I have returned from the Mauritanian Ribbon Reef Labyrinth intact, though I must admit that I had to abandon my navigation. Egression saved my life and mind, even if it injured my pride. Our returns, the reasons for our absences, and above all, our support for Alex, give me occasion to explore a topic more pressing than ever.

We can now adumbrate the three great paradigms of labyrinthological peril. The Classicists, in their Aristotelian urge to classify, articulated object dangers. The famed Minotaur best typifies this class. The factious advents of Recursivism and Constructivism ushered in the paradigm of cognitive dangers. An eminent example, from Recursivist navigation and scholarship, is "telic liquidation": the dissolution of purpose, these thinkers posit, resulting from congression, or arrival at the center. Now, in our present era's push towards subjective and objective navigational integration, we discuss holistic dangers. I for one, and in deepest commiseration with our fellow labyrinthian, Alex, must speak to these.

Vast improvements in medical technology and psychiatric treatment have demonstrated the very real and grave consequences our psychological states have for our physical well-being. And, of course, the logical converse holds true here as well. To understand, then, my fateful experiences in the Mauritanian Ribbon Reef Labyrinth, and to convey them to you, I must recast holistic dangers in the parlance of the day: Post-Navigation Stress Disorder (PSND).

Much research has focused on the holistic dangers during navigation. Yet, while my colleague likewise is struggling to make sense of his recent navigation, I want to turn our labyrinthological eyes to those lingering, haunting, and, very literally, life-shaking, dangers of the labyrinth upon our egression -- as if the labyrinth navigates us long after we have navigated (yes, especially when in vain) the labyrinth.

PNSD is particularly acute after a navigator, regardless of the theory espoused, must egress the labyrinth prior to any significant navigational accomplishment. In the Ribbon Reef, I attained neither a sense of corridor nor center. As the foundational Yves Cruemer wisely observed in her monograph, The Encountered Labyrinth, "Failure of navigational accomplishment, regardless of theoretical intent, is the essence of deficient navigation."

Deficient navigation, I have come to understand upon personal reflection and research into PNSD studies, has a dual set of chronic symptoms. The first are physiological. I can attest to the real, physical feelings of sickness my failed navigation has incurred. Fatigue, hallucinations, hypoventilation, increased blood pressure, fever, and amyotonia are among some of the major symptoms. Researchers have described the physiological stress as "navigatorial dysbasia," post-navigation difficulty in walking. This general term is used to indicate displays of physiological stresses unique to navigation but not during navigation.

The second set of symptoms are psychological. I can also aver that deficient navigation causes one to feel as if in "suspended navigation." In this state, the post-navigator cannot recognize, much as with agnosia, ordinary objects, events, and, in extreme cases, people, for what they are. Instead, the phenomena of life are filtered only through the processes of navigation. For instance, doctors report high incidence of a fear of doors and hallways; one post-navigator described these architectural features as "dreadful decisions that I must but cannot confront."

We will discuss the symptoms of PNSD in greater depth as we learn more from Alex's first-hand accounts and as I better synthesize my own experiences with my current research.

In the meantime, I am offering two illustrations I sketched as I underwent my post-navigational therapy. (Dr. Izokawi's innovative visualization techniques, which developed in Japan in the 1980s, proved profoundly effective.) Perhaps they can offer us insight into the psycho-physiological experience of PNSD, but, most assuredly, they give us the courage to know we can overcome this powerful disorder.

"Blue Wall, No. 12," John K., late 2009

"A Third Door," John K., late 2009