Rencontre Bien Totale

Does knowledge need to be so closely married to history? Does the temporal depth of one's acquaintance with something/someone determine the validity of knowledge one has? "I have known him for ten years!" "I have made art for ten years!" I shall like to divorce the two, knowledge and history, and entertain other configurations. To start: Knowledge as wedded to the specificity of a moment; a specificity of various dimensions - sensorium, space, rhetoric. I know because I acknowledge the specific details of ---. Can I have significant knowledge of one moment, embraced and indulged with all of its physical, sensual, spatial specificity of that one moment of which to speak? Can one singular moment encompass a "RENCONTRE BIEN TOTALE" as Aimé Césaire writes, a DELICIOUS TOTAL ENCOUNTER? Can I know, with a single submersion under water, as another who has submerged herself many times, over many years?

We can never offer a "complete" archaeological record of "knowledge." We know that to be a futile effort left behind with modernist thought. Yet we still flirt with it, this desire to know more and to know enough. Yet, I propose moving past these flirtatious encounters, towards a polyamorous relationship with the world. "I choose to fully engage with you, and you, and you, and you, and to love you, and you, and you, and you. I will know each of you in the specific ways that you need.

Yet, I still long for a monogamous depth of knowledge.