On the extraordinary : problematisation, flatness, and repetition

Abstract

This essay reflects on the meaning and connotations of “the extraordinary” as applied to a person’s life context. To do so, it transposes to a smaller scale different concepts from philosophy of history (such as the notion of repetition in Nietzsche and Freud). These are then mainly framed with artistic (literary) examples for its capability of moment-creation in order to examine the mere condition of possibility of the emergence of something extraordinary in the personal affective sphere. In the essay, the extraordinary is defined both as an unlikely probability within a system and a moment in which various potentialities unfold, but also as a moment of flat temporality. The three conceptualizations intertwine to describe a feeling of waiting for something to happen: the extraordinary becomes only possible by its own indictment, in a version of vitalism that invests the incitement of the moment with counter-boredom. Ultimately, boredom provides a way of thinking flatness as previous to the condition of possibility, thus understanding the extraordinary as resistance against the force that orients action towards illusionary horizons.