Academic essay on Ouroborus
Title:
Creator or Ouroboros: On Fragmentation, Chaos, and the Ontology of Becoming
Author: Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy, Chat-GPT adapted it from my poem 'Ouroborus '
Abstract
This essay explores the philosophical implications of creation, fragmentation, and cyclical selfhood through the poetic metaphor of the Ouroboros. Drawing upon the themes in the poem “creator or Ouroborus?!”, it examines the paradoxes of divine agency, chaotic emergence, and the dangers of completed being. The analysis weaves together metaphysical inquiry, mythology, and postmodern cosmology to investigate whether the cosmos—and the self—can ever attain wholeness without succumbing to annihilation. Influences from Gnosticism, Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Islamic mysticism are discussed to illuminate the fragmenting, recursive process of becoming.
Creator or Ouroboros: On Fragmentation, Chaos, and the Ontology of Becoming
In many cosmological and philosophical traditions, creation is not an act of pure order but a birthing from chaos. The poem "creator or Ouroborus?!" begins with this ambiguity: the creator may be too consumed with creation to observe its consequences, or may itself be a product of the chaos it attempts to shape. This inversion—of cause and effect, creator and created—reflects the philosophical tension between determinism and spontaneity, transcendence and immanence.
The Ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a serpent devouring its own tail, becomes the central image through which the poem contemplates the existential danger of unity, completion, and self-containment. As this essay argues, the creator’s impulse to remain fragmented—to spin, orbit, and elope from totality—is not a flaw, but a metaphysical necessity.
Creation as Fragmentation: A Cosmology of Loss
The poem begins by positing a creator “busy in its creations,” absent or indifferent to the chaos of the world. But quickly, the perspective shifts: “Or, maybe, it is chaos building it!” This reversal situates the divine not as a static transcendent source, but as an emergent pattern from the depths of disorder. In this way, it resonates with Deleuze’s (1994) notion of difference and repetition: being is not the result of a fixed identity, but of continuous becoming through instability.
The line “Fragments of self lost and revived in the turmoil” echoes a Gnostic or Sufi cosmology in which the divine shatters itself to give rise to multiplicity. In Islamic mysticism, particularly in the writings of Ibn Arabi, God is not only the originator but also the seeker of self-knowledge through creation (Chittick, 1989). This is a form of divine self-fragmentation, where every created being becomes a mirror of the divine essence.
Circling Without Center: The Refusal of Unity
A core motif in the poem is the circular motion of the universe that “revolves...yet not finding the end.” This line evokes not merely the physical motion of cosmic bodies, but a deeper metaphysical structure: the refusal to reach a singular center. “Circling around the orbit but never reaching the center” implies an intentional avoidance of convergence.
This is described as a “unique distaste,” a phrase suggesting agency and even revulsion. The refusal to converge becomes an affirmation of difference, of creative multiplicity over sterile unity. Nietzsche (1967) captured a similar duality in his discussion of the Apollonian (order) and Dionysian (chaos) forces—life thrives when it embraces disorder, not when it calcifies into stillness.
Simulations and Solitude: The Conditions for Birth
The poem speculates that if the universe “could be lonely for a while,” it might birth “another cosmos.” Solitude is not framed as isolation, but as potentiality—a womb-like condition from which new realities emerge. Yet the poem warns that if the universe “remains standstill, completed and wholesome,” it risks becoming “lonely forever and detached.”
This paradox captures the philosophical danger of completeness: total unity negates the drive toward further creation. Baudrillard (1994) described this as the “implosion of meaning”—a world so full of representation and simulation that meaning collapses. The poem offers an ontological warning: to be finished is to be self-consuming.
The Ouroboros as Metaphysical Limit
The final image of the Ouroboros brings these themes into sharp relief. If the universe—or the self—achieves perfection and stillness, it becomes an Ouroboros: a being that devours itself. While the Ouroboros is often seen as a symbol of eternity, in this context it marks the limit of becoming. As Hegel (1977) noted, absolute selfhood cannot develop without relational otherness. To become an Ouroboros is to end the dialectic and fold entirely into the self—without alterity, there is no growth, no creation.
Conclusion
Through the layered metaphors of chaos, orbit, and the Ouroboros, this poem sketches a philosophical cosmology in which creation arises not from unity but from fragmentation, not from transcendence but from recursive immanence. The creator is not a sovereign entity above its work but a participant in a swirling dance of self-loss and self-becoming. To remain in motion, to resist wholeness, is to remain fertile.
The Ouroboros warns of the cost of perfection: a world without difference, without longing, without newness. Perhaps the cosmos—like the self—must remain unfinished to remain alive.
References
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation (S. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1981)
Chittick, W. C. (1989). The Sufi path of knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s metaphysics of imagination. State University of New York Press.
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1968)
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1807)
Nietzsche, F. (1967). The birth of tragedy (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1872)
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