Deleuze and Guattari

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a becoming, not a being. We cannot be a being because we never fully encompass one single state but are a multiplicity of assemblages, in a constant “non-state” of becoming. To be in the process of living is to be free from a definitive being. All living things are constantly interacting with other things. There is never simply one interaction acting upon a living thing. In this being said if a living thing is defined by it’s interactions, and these interaction are infinite, a living thing cannot be defined as a being only a becoming. The term being can only define things that have one dimension and are in a definite state, such as any object. Living things are not object, they are subjects. Living things are always subject to affects of change and new potential.

Haecceity can describe how a living thing is a subject to infinite multiplicties. Haecceity is the “this” of something, it’s uniqueness. Deleuze and Gutarri use the example “the animal-stalks-at-five-o’clock.” The animal cannot be described by one haecceity. In just this statement the “this” or haecceity of the animal could be what the animal is doing, stalking, or at which time the animal is doing this, five-o’clock. The animal not only is in a becoming of interaction with the prey it is stalking but the animal is in a becoming with the interaction it has with the time of day. All haecceitys, all interactions and all multiplicities of dimensions and potential come together to make an assemblage of becoming of a living thing.

We as humans are the only living things that see ourselves as a superior being based on our physical differences. All other living things only understand other living things in a way of interactions and in that understanding they are free from identity and definition. Humans are the only living thing that could comprehend this freedom and we are the ones who lack it. “Becoming-Intense” means to become differentiated and the only thing that differentiates living things are the interactions it has and is affected by. The only way humans can comprehend this is to “ Become- Animal” as in adopting the way animals see the world, free of categories of living things but simply a world full of meaningful interaction. “Becoming-Imperceivable” is to achieve this thought process and be free from a definition and identity. If these things in society are achieved being will no longer be a concept and the meaning in heredity and filiation will be dropped. To know that we are a becoming not a being must come from rhiozomatic thought.

Deleuze and Gutarri wrote the text “ A Thousand Plateaus” in a way that the chapters have no meaningful serial order and in a complexity that challenges the reader to many references that the reader may not be able to perceive. In the way Deleuze and Gutarri have written the text is an example of how humans need to go about understanding that we are a becoming. We have no place in a serial hierarchy in the world, we are just another living thing that is connected by interactions within the world. We should not only know things by a definition but by the interactions we have with it ourselves. The reader could read this text in any order and come to the same potential of understanding with each order and the reader will only understand a reference if they have had an interaction with it before. “ A Thousand Plateaus” in itself is an example of Deleuze and Gutarri’s concept of nature.