Jabès: n; death's shadow is white.

jargon: n; language metastasized.

Jaspers: n; 1. “every step in the direction of genuine discovery is the overcoming of endlessness.” 2. to think is to suffer differently.

journalist: n; when failure is consistent, and as in a scientific experiment, it is not a failure. a consistent result is the only result possible given that the system in which it occurs and the conditions which govern it remain unchanged. given that the concept of an ideal journalist says nothing about the existence of such journalists in practice it would be surprising, considering the system and conditions which exist, if a true journalist were to exist. in fact it would be a miracle.

journey: n; the image of death as a journey is a popular one. for instance a train ride through a strange landscape towards no particular destination. i however think that death may be more aptly compared to missing such a train rather than getting on it. our lives are spent packing what we think we will need on our journey. the ticket has been purchased for us long before we were born. the ticket is waiting for us at the station. we don't know when the train will be leaving, we just get a feeling that we should leave and so we make our way to the station with our baggage. and then when we get there we walk onto the platform and find that it is empty. there are no people anywhere to be seen. the train has either just left or there never have been and never will be trains that pass by here. and this is our station.

judgment: n; 1. those who live in pre-fabricated social constructions should not hurl judgments. 2. apart from their trivial aspect of being qualifications adjectives and adverbs are acts of judgment. to qualify something is to posit it; but more than this, there is an explicit assertion that there are different modes of being (or at least of appearing) available to the thing being qualified. in fact, at times adjectives and adverbs function almost as arguments from authority (e.g. to say the markets are sluggish is to argue that markets must exist, otherwise how could one qualify something non-existent?)

Jung: n; “if we do not understand the meaning of our present state, then we are in a far worse condition than the one from which innovation/progress was intended to free us”. from this then, one can see how scientific illiteracy in the general public ensures that any medical/pharmaceutical advance will not be understood and therefore will not help/free anyone; instead, it will only worsen their condition.

justice: n; justice is something that is applied, like paint, or cosmetics, often in order to conceal a blemish or to disguise an annoyingly persistent characteristic of reality.

juxtaposition: n; when you have created enough collages, when your mind has been thoroughly infiltrated by the collage aesthetic, the inevitable moment comes when your life compared with the alternative seems the most absurd juxtaposition of all.