I checked in my copy of Webster’s Crossword Puzzle Dictionary and found 36 words that mean “being”.  In addition “being” includes five categories pertaining to celestial, imaginary, science of, supernatural and Supreme.  All of this is in this particular dictionary and was not discussed by my philosopher lecturer who wanted to talk about Jacques Derrida (about whom I never heard a previous word) and “deconstruction” (about which I had a vague understanding).

Much of philosophy is concerned with words.  Words have meanings and are used “in place of” the things they represent. As the lecturer pointed out, this is quite handy for we cannot deal with all the THINGS that words stand in for. This, I understand. I also understand that your definition about a word that is commonly used may be quite different from a definition with which I am comfortable. Actually, there is no supreme authority on what “being” is. The religious right in this country, and perhaps Fundamentalists throughout the world, are sure that they have dibs on the notion of “being”. People everywhere and convinced Conservatives AND Liberals, believe so strongly in their possession of the correct definitions of the words they use, that they are intolerant of any other definition in use by any other person, much less than by any other philosopher or believer in any other religion.

So, my thoughts on “being” are restricted by my own experience and prejudices enhanced by my education and extensive reading and listening to taped lectures as I ride my bike throughout the early morning (this morning it was windy, cool and dry) hour just as the sun was rising in North Miami Beach, Florida. (This essay is not being easily birthed because of a malady of blinking lights and sticky keys that causes me to mistype and retype and have to move the cursor instead of typing) But being is living, I suppose except, perhaps, in such individuals as Mrs. Shaivo and fetal organisms that are protected so fiercely by “Right to Lifers” like the fundamentally obsessed reactionary conservatives who wish to impose their definitions of reality on all the rest of us.

All of the foregoing is preface to my understanding of deconstructionism. I think I have just formulated a global definition of how the deconstructionists use the term. What they say is that all ideas are equal. Further, some ideas are more equal than others and their ideas are the most equal of all. Hence, there is no room for any other idea while they are making their ideas the law of the land. There is no room for debate, for your ideas and words are not as good as theirs are.

There is a state of being and I know I (be) am here for, how can I doubt I exist (a state of being) for I must be here to doubt. (Thank you Mr. Descartes)