(35) The abracadabrant story of the Moon Child

AI translation 

“Speech belongs half to the one who speaks, and half to the one who listens. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes. As among those who play at tennis, the one who returns the ball moves and readies himself according to the stroke that is sent to him.
One must order the soul of the listener, to set it in motion to follow.
I do not care for speeches that are tightly bound and stitched together, which allow neither interruption nor diversion.
I want one to respond aptly, to adapt to the present matter, not to avoid the occasion that presents itself.
The most fruitful and natural exercise of our mind is, in my view, conversation. I find its use more agreeable than that of any other action of our life.
This is why, if I were forced to choose, I would rather lose sight than hearing and speech.”

Michel de Montaigne, Essays

Teddy Bear Notebook

 

The French verb causer, in its familiar sense—“to chat,” causer avec quelqu’un— does indeed come from cause, and thus, indirectly, from causa. But what matters is not only its etymological origin. It is, as with the Moon Child, the path it has taken.

Originally, causa, as you know, designates a matter under discussion, a dispute, something that calls for speech. From this comes the French cause, and then the verb causer in its primary sense: to produce an effect, to be the cause of.

But alongside this—and this is where the vertigo begins—causer has shifted toward another meaning… to speak, to chat. This shift is not accidental. It says something deep:

to speak (causer) is always already to be caught up in a cause. Not in the sense of a mechanical origin, but in the sense of a matter that calls for speech.

When one cause, in the familiar French sense, one does not merely produce sounds. One is engaged in something that circulates between speakers. There is always a “subject,” even if diffuse or implicit, sometimes forgotten. One never speaks of nothing… we used to say, along the way—Nounours, sometimes small… sometimes so large, always absent-mindedly wondering what role he was playing, and myself, gesticulating…

— Even when we think we are talking about everything and nothing!
— So causer still preserves, in its own way, the memory of causa… to speak is to be seized by something that asks to be said.
— It is not only we who decide to speak…
— It is also “something” that makes us speak.
— And here, the circle closes…
— …the thing as that which calls for speech
— …the cause as that which sets in motion
— …the “something” as that which insists without allowing itself to be fixed…

— One might then risk a more radical formulation… speaking is not merely expressing…
— It is responding.
— Responding to what?
— To a “thing” that is already there… but not yet said. To a cause that is not a clear origin, but an obscure demand. And this is where the vertigo truly appears. For if causer comes from causa, then speaking is never an entirely free act, nor entirely mastered.

— It is always already a response to something that precedes.
— We believe we begin to speak, but in reality we enter into a speech already begun.
— Something speaks before us, or at least calls for speech.
— And we respond to it.

— Even in the lightest chatter, something insists…
— Something circulates…
— Something seeks to be said.

— Thus, causer is not a weakening of cause.
— It is a discreet…
— …but profound transformation…
— Cause is no longer only what produces; it becomes what calls for speech.
— And speaking becomes the most immediate way of responding to that call.

— What is vertiginous, indeed, is that this completely overturns the usual scene…
— It is no longer simply we who speak about things; it is the “things,” in the sense of causa, that make us speak.