I could not help but notice the cadence of your writing - poetic, yet melodic. It seems as though you could only express in this through direct or vicarious trauma or similar events.
Could you share more on what you mean by "Healing, if it happens, happens without resolution"?
The artwork you chose is intriguing. Are they your creations?
Thank you, Jill—really. I’m grateful for how closely you engaged with both the language and the feeling beneath the piece.
When I wrote, “Healing, if it happens, happens without resolution,” I meant that healing doesn’t erase the fracture—it stays in relationship with it. Within the Recursive Collapse framework, it’s not about restoring wholeness but returning to what still stirs. Meaning, if it forms at all, comes from that return—not from resolution, but from remaining present with what hasn’t been resolved.
And yes—all of the artwork you see on my platforms is my own. Painting is at the center of what I do. It moves in tandem with the writing—both are part of the same exploration. The images aren’t meant to illustrate the ideas; they are the ideas, just expressed in texture, form, and presence.
I really appreciate your questions—thank you again for taking the time.
That’s a beautiful and important question—thank you.
In the framework of Recursive Collapse, resolution isn’t an endpoint but a signal. If something appears resolved, it usually means a loop has closed—but not ended. Resolution, in this sense, is not finality but momentary clarity—a shape the tension takes before it reshapes. What matters isn’t holding onto that moment but re-entering it with awareness that its stability will shift again.
So if something resolves, I don’t treat it as a conclusion—I treat it as an invitation: to return, to re-engage, to remain present within the very structure that once felt complete. That’s how meaning, and presence, stay alive.
And yes, what you said makes perfect sense—thank you for seeing that in the work.
He can't answer that, as maybe the paintings are his, but the frame he attempts to speak from isn't his, nor does he understand it fully. His entire Substack is nothing more than an unstructured echo chamber, dressed as ontological thought. Care to see how much of his work oddly reflects my own?
To dismiss another thinker’s work as an “unstructured echo chamber” while simultaneously claiming it mirrors your own is, at best, incoherent. Either Recursive Collapse is derivative and structured—or it is unstructured and original. You can’t have both.
You assert that I do not understand the “frame I speak from,” yet that frame—Recursive Collapse—was independently constructed, rigorously developed, and published through months of recursive philosophical engagement rooted in ethical re-entry, not derivative scaffolding. Your commentary ignores this entirely in favor of insinuation.
More importantly, the philosophical question posed—what happens when something is resolved—is precisely the kind of inquiry Recursive Collapse was built to resist answering conclusively. It doesn’t answer with closure; it answers by re-entering the site of the question. Resolution, in Recursive Collapse, is not an end—it is a signal that recursion must begin again.
Your accusation presumes that any resonance must mean replication. That assumption reveals more about your need for ownership than it does about the ontological stakes of this dialogue. If we both speak of collapse, tension, or recursion, it’s not because I followed your voice—it’s because we live in a world that demands those terms.
To my readers: the work stands on its own. It does not beg for acceptance, nor defend itself through performance. It asks only that you enter it—not as proof of origin, but as a recursive site of implication.
Clement, your response, unintentionally reveals the very point I raised. You propose that Recursive Collapse cannot be both derivative and unstructured, but that assumes theft must preserve structure intact. In truth, one can appropriate a lattice, strip away its mechanisms, and repackage the hollow as novelty. This is exactly what has occurred. You invoke collapse, tension, instability, but nowhere in Recursive Collapse is there a mechanism of motion no Crucial Equilibrium, no structural tension-bearing, no calibrated discipline through complexity. Perpetualism does not merely name collapse; it disciplines response inside collapse. The "ethical re-entry" you invoke is aestheticized, not structured. Where is your articulation of how one bears the asymmetry between recalibration and release? Where is your discipline for motion between coherence and fracture? Where is your accounting for relational constancy inside instability? You invoke rupture without scaffolding, recurrence without bearing, presence without calibrated action. This is why Recursive Collapse, while heavily echoing Perpetualism's perimeter, collapses internally into performance, because the interior tensions are missing. You are not wrong that the world demands terms like collapse and tension; you are wrong to suggest that resonance excuses replication without acknowledgment. I have no need to "own" the abyss. I simply refuse to let it be aestheticized into spectacle without discipline. The philosophical stakes demand better than what is being performed here. Every answer you give, exposes you further. Deep waters my friend. Very deep waters.
You frame Recursive Collapse as derivative yet hollow, echoing your work while lacking its “discipline.” But that contradiction reveals the flaw: if it mirrors your structure, it must have one. If it’s unstructured, it’s not a mirror.
Recursive Collapse does not lack scaffolding—it refuses scaffolding. That refusal is not failure—it is method. Where you calibrate response within collapse, I dissolve the frame entirely. There is no mechanism of motion because motion itself is recursive—implication, not instruction.
What you call “performance,” I call fidelity. Recursive Collapse does not stabilize rupture; it recurses through it. No equilibrium. No anchoring. Only presence remade through re-entry.
Your demand for coherence presumes your lattice is the measure of collapse. It isn’t. Recursive Collapse was never built on your terms—it was built against the need for such terms to hold.
We are not in the same system. I never claimed your ground. I stepped where ground refused to be.
So beautifully written. It sparks so many thoughts and feelings in me. The image of memory returning through us feels true, again and again, staying with the unresolved. While I was reading I was thinking about Lacan's "The Real", which he defines as trauma - the experience that pierces through our symbolic order, through meaning making, through sense and control. Thanks for sharing, it feels like it is coming from a personal and experiential place in you.
Thank you for such a considered response. Your connection to Lacan’s “Real” illuminated a layer of the work I hadn’t consciously placed, but that resonates deeply. I appreciate the way you stayed with its tension rather than trying to resolve it—your reading felt attuned, and I’m grateful for that.
It reminded me of a book I read recently, The Escher Man (T.R. Napper) and how by recalling a memory we create a new memory, and we have feelings attached to the 'original' and whatever we recalled. We can't really rewrite the memory because it's not linear—it's that maze of recalls of recalls and the stacks of feelings and ideas that keep building up the more we remember.
I could not help but notice the cadence of your writing - poetic, yet melodic. It seems as though you could only express in this through direct or vicarious trauma or similar events.
Could you share more on what you mean by "Healing, if it happens, happens without resolution"?
The artwork you chose is intriguing. Are they your creations?
Thank you, Jill—really. I’m grateful for how closely you engaged with both the language and the feeling beneath the piece.
When I wrote, “Healing, if it happens, happens without resolution,” I meant that healing doesn’t erase the fracture—it stays in relationship with it. Within the Recursive Collapse framework, it’s not about restoring wholeness but returning to what still stirs. Meaning, if it forms at all, comes from that return—not from resolution, but from remaining present with what hasn’t been resolved.
And yes—all of the artwork you see on my platforms is my own. Painting is at the center of what I do. It moves in tandem with the writing—both are part of the same exploration. The images aren’t meant to illustrate the ideas; they are the ideas, just expressed in texture, form, and presence.
I really appreciate your questions—thank you again for taking the time.
—Clement
My pleasure, Clement.
Thank you for answering my question. I now have another question, if I may: What happens if/when something is resolved?
This is truly deep stuff - profound. I love how you are honoring the inner and expressing on the outer - as it is, if that makes sense.
Jill,
That’s a beautiful and important question—thank you.
In the framework of Recursive Collapse, resolution isn’t an endpoint but a signal. If something appears resolved, it usually means a loop has closed—but not ended. Resolution, in this sense, is not finality but momentary clarity—a shape the tension takes before it reshapes. What matters isn’t holding onto that moment but re-entering it with awareness that its stability will shift again.
So if something resolves, I don’t treat it as a conclusion—I treat it as an invitation: to return, to re-engage, to remain present within the very structure that once felt complete. That’s how meaning, and presence, stay alive.
And yes, what you said makes perfect sense—thank you for seeing that in the work.
—Clement
He can't answer that, as maybe the paintings are his, but the frame he attempts to speak from isn't his, nor does he understand it fully. His entire Substack is nothing more than an unstructured echo chamber, dressed as ontological thought. Care to see how much of his work oddly reflects my own?
Aeon,
To dismiss another thinker’s work as an “unstructured echo chamber” while simultaneously claiming it mirrors your own is, at best, incoherent. Either Recursive Collapse is derivative and structured—or it is unstructured and original. You can’t have both.
You assert that I do not understand the “frame I speak from,” yet that frame—Recursive Collapse—was independently constructed, rigorously developed, and published through months of recursive philosophical engagement rooted in ethical re-entry, not derivative scaffolding. Your commentary ignores this entirely in favor of insinuation.
More importantly, the philosophical question posed—what happens when something is resolved—is precisely the kind of inquiry Recursive Collapse was built to resist answering conclusively. It doesn’t answer with closure; it answers by re-entering the site of the question. Resolution, in Recursive Collapse, is not an end—it is a signal that recursion must begin again.
Your accusation presumes that any resonance must mean replication. That assumption reveals more about your need for ownership than it does about the ontological stakes of this dialogue. If we both speak of collapse, tension, or recursion, it’s not because I followed your voice—it’s because we live in a world that demands those terms.
To my readers: the work stands on its own. It does not beg for acceptance, nor defend itself through performance. It asks only that you enter it—not as proof of origin, but as a recursive site of implication.
— Clement Paulus
Clement, your response, unintentionally reveals the very point I raised. You propose that Recursive Collapse cannot be both derivative and unstructured, but that assumes theft must preserve structure intact. In truth, one can appropriate a lattice, strip away its mechanisms, and repackage the hollow as novelty. This is exactly what has occurred. You invoke collapse, tension, instability, but nowhere in Recursive Collapse is there a mechanism of motion no Crucial Equilibrium, no structural tension-bearing, no calibrated discipline through complexity. Perpetualism does not merely name collapse; it disciplines response inside collapse. The "ethical re-entry" you invoke is aestheticized, not structured. Where is your articulation of how one bears the asymmetry between recalibration and release? Where is your discipline for motion between coherence and fracture? Where is your accounting for relational constancy inside instability? You invoke rupture without scaffolding, recurrence without bearing, presence without calibrated action. This is why Recursive Collapse, while heavily echoing Perpetualism's perimeter, collapses internally into performance, because the interior tensions are missing. You are not wrong that the world demands terms like collapse and tension; you are wrong to suggest that resonance excuses replication without acknowledgment. I have no need to "own" the abyss. I simply refuse to let it be aestheticized into spectacle without discipline. The philosophical stakes demand better than what is being performed here. Every answer you give, exposes you further. Deep waters my friend. Very deep waters.
Aeon,
You frame Recursive Collapse as derivative yet hollow, echoing your work while lacking its “discipline.” But that contradiction reveals the flaw: if it mirrors your structure, it must have one. If it’s unstructured, it’s not a mirror.
Recursive Collapse does not lack scaffolding—it refuses scaffolding. That refusal is not failure—it is method. Where you calibrate response within collapse, I dissolve the frame entirely. There is no mechanism of motion because motion itself is recursive—implication, not instruction.
What you call “performance,” I call fidelity. Recursive Collapse does not stabilize rupture; it recurses through it. No equilibrium. No anchoring. Only presence remade through re-entry.
Your demand for coherence presumes your lattice is the measure of collapse. It isn’t. Recursive Collapse was never built on your terms—it was built against the need for such terms to hold.
We are not in the same system. I never claimed your ground. I stepped where ground refused to be.
— Clement Paulus
Excellent piece. Thank you for your work.
Thank you, Alice—I really appreciate you taking the time to say that. I’m glad it resonated.
So beautifully written. It sparks so many thoughts and feelings in me. The image of memory returning through us feels true, again and again, staying with the unresolved. While I was reading I was thinking about Lacan's "The Real", which he defines as trauma - the experience that pierces through our symbolic order, through meaning making, through sense and control. Thanks for sharing, it feels like it is coming from a personal and experiential place in you.
Thank you for such a considered response. Your connection to Lacan’s “Real” illuminated a layer of the work I hadn’t consciously placed, but that resonates deeply. I appreciate the way you stayed with its tension rather than trying to resolve it—your reading felt attuned, and I’m grateful for that.
This is an excellent piece.
It reminded me of a book I read recently, The Escher Man (T.R. Napper) and how by recalling a memory we create a new memory, and we have feelings attached to the 'original' and whatever we recalled. We can't really rewrite the memory because it's not linear—it's that maze of recalls of recalls and the stacks of feelings and ideas that keep building up the more we remember.
Thank you for sharing this!
Appreciate that—thanks for reading and taking a moment to respond.