I said to myself “I must never forget this”: I took a paper from the table; I ripped a piece from it and I placed it on the section of the book that I should not forget. I caught the sight of the paper remained on the table: some stuff was written on it - some people's names, their phone numbers, mail addresses and the articles that should be completed around that time, when they have to be completed and where they have to be sent; also small sections cited from some writers. But their dates were old anyway; I mean those notes have mostly lost their meanings . Therefore, I didn't really much care if a part of the paper is ripped off and I crumbled it; threw it into the bin.

The section I put a mark on in the book - I didn't have a chance to go back to it for a while. After weeks, I have realized that the book was still on the table when I was trying to sort other things out. The note papers that I was using back then, books, tobacco packs, ashtrays, pens have filled the table in a way that there was not even a single space to put a mug of coffee on. So, I had to remove unnecessary things; reorganize the table; I took that book and placed it on its place on the book shelf.

I don't know how long the book waited on that shelf, but it shouldn't be less than a year. One day when I took and opened it ( in order to look for something else), the first section opened was surely the one with paper in between. Immediately I remembered this: I marked this part not to forget his part; yet what was it in that section that I was supposed to remember? I have forgotten that. I peeked through the sentences - they didn't mean anything to me; it was as if I was reading it for the first time. Yet I remembered the names, quotes on the paper and why I wrote them (it was less indirect and easy to remember them); at that moment the text in the book suddenly appeared in my mind; writings on the paper and the book have made a short circuit, got into to each other and started to process. However, it was hard to separate this intertwined state - I mean- it was very hard for me to extricate the things written on the paper and the text in the book - one didn't exist without the other. 

This simple fictional work above makes a reference to another text that I "remembered" when I was writing this one. This is that wonderful book called "The Future of Nostalgia" (for some reason I only remembered one text which is this one - I don't know why only this one) by Svetlana Boym. Boym starts that book with a story of return to the "introduction" section of the book and there she tells this: "Once a bastion of  medieval Teutonic knights, Königsberg during the post war years had been transformed into Kaliningrad, an exemplary Soviet construction site.    A single gothic cathedral without a cupola, where rain was allowed to drizzle onto the tomb stone of Immanuel Kant, remained among the ruins of the city's Prussian past.     The man and the woman walked around Kaliningrad, recognising a little until they came to the Pregolya River,  where the smell of dandelions and hay brought back the stories of their parents. Here it is not important if this old couple has seen Kaliningrad or gone there after many years, long after they have forgotten it completely. Whatever the reason is, the thing that reminds them the past in any situation is quite exclusive of what they actually try to remember - something that doesn't come to your mind (I read that text, which I marked and kept, with a different aim as well: an aim that I didn't have in mind in the past...).

Roland Barthes says a consoling thing in his book "S/Z Sarrasine": "I person should not think him/her self since they forgotten a text; because a text is written to be forgotten." According to Barthes there are a lot of reasons for this thesis and one of which is writing's quality of being a whole of sign. As he explains in his book "Writing Degree Zero", "writing" starts with ignoring history. In spite of this, history of written language has only one history: The history of its signifying possibilities... "Hébert never began a number of Le Père Duchêne without putting in a few 'fucks and 'buggers'.  These obscenities did tell nothing, but signified. What did they signify? A state of a whole revolution. Now its function was no longer only to inform or verbalise; but also an example of writing that is both History as well as a choice made here to adopt something beyond language." The situation that Berthes emphasize is clear: Written language (as long as it is a signifier) will go after its own signifying history rather than the history of events. There history, suggests the connection in between texts rather than the connection in between events. Just like that it can easily be understood why I  can remember a text from a simple note paper and then why both of these suddenly and without any reason started to indicate Boym's text; and why (as it is defined in S/Z Sarrasine) it is not considered to be stupid to forget a text... Because consecutive things are not the "inner" meanings of events, but they are the "outer" constructions of texts.

As Jacques Derrida says in his book called "Of Grammatology": "What we call meaning consists of an overall texture of segregations.  These segregations create a textural [textual] connection formed by inter textual references. Each supposedly literal term is worked by another person's trace. That always carries itself out of itself. Here Derrida tells us that every text becomes a signifier, yet a total illusion of meaning has been created with the network of differences in between them (like the situation, which Immanuel Kant defines as "transcendental illusion"). And at the same time, this also should be determined: Benefiting from the aforementioned illusion, Western metaphysics has formed its own world of meaning... The critics of all this has been presented in a very detailed way by Derrida; but in this stage we need to be careful to this: It is not possible for any of these segregations to express themselves freely and securely since each term carry segregations (différance) within themselves: the only thing that is possible is that each text provide its own “non-expressivité” (non expressiveness). So the text does not explain any meaning with its "outer" look - it can transfer the meaning with the "non expressiveness" condition. In that case what is left to us in the name of meaning? Or else it should be asked as such: If a text is not conveying us nothing but meaning, then what does it actually transmit? Maybe only one thing: Its own ironic structure... Here "irony" concept can be understood as "come to a dead end" rather than "to make it humorous". If a text is the equivalent of its own "conundrum", then what we can get from it is to percept the reference it makes to "conundrum" rather than reading the meaning. Here what is intended from inter-textural texture is to follow the transformed signs of these "conundrum"s ("ironic" states).

Derrida's analysis on language or writing does not provide us with means of communication in practical life; it only makes us to become suspicious in the moments, in which we think we communicated; managed to transmit meanings (This is a criticism of a situation, in which Western mysticism penetrates to each and every section of life). Pondering upon structuralism, which is his own base (this can also be called " a loose structuralism"), Michel Foucault tend towards the problems of structuralism, which will later be dealt by Derrida in a radical attitude. In his book "The Order of Things" her writes: "Knowledge therefore consisted in relating one from of language to another form of language; in restoring the great unbroken plain of words and thins; in making everything peak. ... The function proper to knowledge is not seeking or demonstrating; it is interpreting.  Scriptural commentary, commentaries on Ancient authors, commentaries on the accounts of travellers, commentaries on legends and fables: none of these forms of discourse is required to justify its claim to be expressing a truth before it is interpreted; all that is required of it is the possibility of talking about it.  There is more work in interpreting interpretations than in interpreting things; and more books about books than on any other subject." As Foucault has written, the thing called "knowledge" is in the simple sign of language; but it is in the network of "interpretation" formed by the signs with each other that can produce forever. Therefore, language can not be a material for "knowledge"; it has got no" definitive" meaning and finds its reality only in the open ended meanings that is transmitted to future statements. At this point lets look at the last sentence of quotation from Foucault one more time. It says: "more books about books than on any other subject." What he means is: If you are after a text that is conveying a meaning, the place where you are hanging about can not be a thin path going along a specific text; it can at most be a giant area in which endless paths going in all directions overlapping, following or intercepting each other. 

How can a person find his/her path in this area; how can a person achieve to find a steady drift that belongs to him/herself in this labyrinth of paths?  Or else is that person going to get lost in that labyrinth (on the way to "knowledge") each time? Foucault is as if giving a hint (even though it is negative) to a person in the very same book: To know those things was to bring to light the system of resemblances that made them close to and dependent upon one another;  but one could discover the similitudes between them only in so far as there existed, on their surface, a totality of signs forming the text of an unequivocal message. But then, these signs themselves were no more than a play of resemblances, and they referred back to the infinite and necessarily uncompleted task of knowing what is similar. " Surely state of similitudes is not very convenient: it closes it again in itself and prevents it from interpretation. Because, what is convenient of language is not being able to declare the interpretation of an interpretation; yet it is in an indirect relationship through this method. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty conveys over Giacometti in his book "Eye and Mind": "What interests me in all the paintings are the similarities; I mean something that has similarity, what makes me want to discover the outside world to me even a little bit are the ones which are further away. Because a painting is similar only according to a body; because it doesn't give another chance to the mind to think about relationships forming the things. But, at a glance it contains the traces of inner look in order to get connected with them; it presents the look a imaginary texture of reality that is covering internally.

This similitude gains a functionality in between meanings even it remains in closed similitude templates or it shows a similitude with "the thing it can't declare" in the comment level. Although the first one of those above personalize and close the meaning in itself and the second one takes us to "knowledge", the system of signs do work well in both ways - to trail the trace of meaning (without getting lost)... This a system that works in the crowd of paths, in between articulation and texts. One thing should be stated except the determinations of Foucault (moving from the place where he negates): Even though a person, who is after meaning, tries to avoid him/herself dealing only with "outer look", this can only be an advantage for this person to remember "some things"; to find more direct and short cuts in between the texts.  Even if he/she dispersed out of a subject or an event, he/she is still wondering around in places related to that meaning. Translating Foucault and René Magritte's "This is Not A Pipe" book into English and writing a "Translator's Introduction" to it, James Harkness wrote these below: "From the commonsense vantage this seems an unnecessarily complex and circumlocutory approach to language, aimed at the most radical divorce possible between words and things.  And why bother?  After all, would anyone seriously argue that a word is what it represents-that the painting of a pipe is the pipe itself?  Yet it is exactly from the commonsense vantage that, when asked to identify the painting, we reply "It's a pipe" -words we shall choke on the moment we try to light up."

Words always get mixed up with some "things". And again according to Harkness this mix-up does not seem to get resolved easily in our daily conversations. The reason for this is the similarities that is formed in between the name of "things" and language taking its source from the quality of "remark".  for the ancient Greeks Logos was signifying both the reality and the knowledge, and therefore the possibility of expressing the truth. Harkness also adds this: Up to the end of the sixteenth century A.D., Europe remained trapped within  a nostalgia for what it dreamed of as the language of Adam.  Given directly by God (and persisting, perhaps, in the queer spatial figurations of written Hebrew), primordial language was a transparent duplication of the Universe." Although it is known that language has moved away (this relationship is wrecked) from being the exact meaning of word after Babel, it couldn't detach itself from this traditional habit for a long time (almost until "analogy" principle suggested in 18th century) until Saussurian linguistics on the verge of 20th century.

The thoughts suggested on language and writing naturally (as expressed in Foucault and Derrida examples) highlights a very different text pattern and a meaning production relative to that pattern.  Linguistics, signs and philosophy work at least through different type of  gears; methods. In fact the "ancient" habit of anyone who is using the language or mingling with texts (even if they have learned, understood philosophical outbursts at a certain level), still (maybe) continues - the habit in that sentence of Harkness: "When asked to identify the painting, we reply 'It's a pipe' ". Harkness is quite right. As a matter of fact nobody would start quoting from Foucault or Derrida texts even if they have an advanced level on language and writing, or analysis of Magritte's paintings, in the presence of a pipe picture. And all of a sudden he/she would say: "This is a pipe." Where does this habit of that person come from? Maybe it is because the Western metaphysics is still quite solid; maybe undertaking the habits of close social environment; maybe due to its humane perception features, maybe due to other things (this is a subject matter that should be dealt independently9... Whatever it is, the answer is definite: "This is a pipe."  Or nay kind of landscape painting is immediately going to reach us as mountains, trees, sky etc. This question emerges later on: "Is that really so?" Yet again there is something weird in this situation; "Pipe" is not "a pipe" neither as the picture nor as language (or both). In short there exists nothing called pipe. Only a structural similarity (picture) and a word attached to it can be mentioned: A definition and a system of similitude... There exists no force seen here which will constrain a person from that "thing", when faced with that "thing".  The signs are working right beside all critics that is made against all structural language... It has been started from structural similitude and reached work; yet it has been going around in the circle of "pipe" in the sense of meaning and the "outer" looks have gotten loose.

Accordingly the similitude principle in texts, there exists a slackness like this and interpretation as well as association of them can only be possible at this point. Foucault talks about four main "semantic method" in the subject of similitude ("The Order of Things"): 1- Convenientia (it can also be said "adjacency" or "juxtaposition"). 2- Aemulatio ( this is used for the "things" that are in a relation of "emulation" with each other and is able to function, without motion, from a distance). 3- Analogy (here, structural or mass similitude can't be mentioned; only a similitude realized by "subtle" sensitivity is enough). 4- Sympathy (this is a “game of being adjacent” and in that game there exists no connection in between “things” ; but through a flash of lighting in somewhere can produce an unspecific and arbitrary "contact"). Foucault's classification is surely enough to put texts (together with everything) into a contextual relation with each other.  The texts are subjected to this classification since they load a meaning, but not having any authorization to express this meaning absolutely; yet they they can only be included into an open ended meaning pattern by being connected to each other and more importantly since they have a structure. Yet, if we are talking about texts apart from the "things", it is only possible to remember them at most by "sympathy". Yes, it is not really surprising to start a topic through a similarity in between a picture of a pipe and a real pipe (I mean pipe as an object and with all its contexts); none the less a connection that can be made in between texts, which have got no relationship with each other whatsoever, does not only occur due to the similarity in letters or subjects; furthermore it doesn't occur through similarities in meaning. Yet, sympathy can attach the closed states of texts in an indirect and arbitrarily (the indirect and arbitrary texts in between remembered, retained texts can lead us even to read new texts).

Now lets go back to the fictional text in the introduction of this article. A comment text within its own context intertwining with a simple note paper... And so the remembrance (with the help of simple note papers) of comment text again... The relationship here can not be connected to a structural similitude; it has got nothing to do with the similarity of meaning or emulation. There are only two reasons remain: 1- Convenientia ("adjacency" and "juxtaposition"); 2- Sympathy (an unspecific and arbitrary contact)... Two things are contiguous; first of all finding a text with a note paper is telling us something; then reminding us an experience without knowing "what we are looking for" (like "I have made them contiguous before"). Remembering the experience makes a similitude relationship in between that experience and text. Although these are highly different situations (because the act of making contiguous has got nothing to do with the text), these two different situations takes us back to "that moment". However, none of the returns are the same with returning to that "very same time" and "very same meaning". With an Adorno like thinking: It is like looking at a scar and going back to an past moment of getting injured. In the very moment of injury, pain was felt, blood was shed and skin was torn. Feelings and visuals are consistent with each other. Yet, the pain has gradually disappeared; the wound has closed; the blood has clotted; only a scar has remained from that experience. That scar does not coincide with the experience; yet nobody can claim that that scar belongs to the moment of injury -in other words to the that scar belongs to the experience. So the example in the introduction is like the scar of this experience. Although memory changes the "moment", it kept the relationship (maybe with sympathy) with it. Foucault emphasizes this in the same book: "Sympathy transforms. It alters, but in the direction of identity.

The experience saved with sympathy increases, changes the meaning and puts the thing that should be remembered into an indirect relationship with other remembered things. The line going from note paper to comment text managed to reach a text of "nostalgia" with thetrace of experience and from there it took a long was to quite a "distant" texts. Is it really possible for that line to incline to this identity all the time or else does a person sometimes get lost in a labyrinth? So what is disappearing? What is the line in between identical and non-identical? These are not prominent: the important thing is to increase the possibility of reaching texts towards wach other and to extending the process of these as far as possible. A person can say this: I don't know the whole meanings of these texts and which method to use and how to properly  to make a meaning pattern in between those; but when I read a text, I sense how to jump to a distant text I have in mind." What that person says it making a text pattern -more clearly to create a text world unique to that person- and to transfer things from inside of that world. Doing so, that person does not use previously taught methods or pass over strong consistency bridges: they just fly(with their instincts). Trailing the traces of remembrances, the things kept in mind and to form a loose, unravelled and unorganized text of these traces is the work of this flight.

​And for the very last time, as Foucault has written: There is more work in interpreting interpretations than in interpreting things; and more books about books than on any other subject."  That is the reason why those books are many since it is possible to bounce to a further "away" that is read, remembered and text kept in mind.