Block

The block. Not outright refusal, but ambivalent denial. Resistance and production of relation. Shattering around the object, shards this way and that. Sprawling relation then, multiplying, divided, apportioned. Stumbling into a knot rather than hitting a wall. It is a tangle that is not insurmountable, but the very intractability of which renders encounter thoughtful. It is a question of effort expended over benefit gained. An unfortunate outcome of the instrumental equivalency of thought perhaps, but the benefit of course is that one can capitalise on this ever-present calculation taking place. Thus the knot is a useful resistance, confounding use and not-use precisely by presenting both faces. Ambivalence is the encounter with the knot, an imperative to disentangle or to disengage. A kind of economic calculation, against which stands the simple hesitancy of the knot.

Joseph Fletcher