"I cannot understand a thing," then what is metaphysical discussion oriented around?

[Dekalb_Blues]

~
Apropos to your question, Sjel, cue one of Man's most important works of art (for those with weird-enough ears/eyes to hear/see):



Premiered in Paris (en francaise, ne sais-tu pas!), in 1953; premiered in London (in English, don't you know!), 1955.
For an exemplary depiction of the type of fervour and lucidity that typically lies at the very heart of the average everyday human metaphysical discussion, see Lucky's learned and lucid thinktank-worthy discourse following 44:30.
Note: qua (Latin 'which way', 'as', from ablative singular feminine of qui 'who') in the capacity or character of, e.g. an analysis of art qua art, leaving aside its commercial aspect, or art qua commodity.

From a percipient commenter: "[Beckett's] work is all 'about' skating the paradoxical postmodernist line between the epistemological and ontological understanding." [Sorta takes all the mystery out of it, don't it?]

From another: "I've read that in an interview, Becket said if he meant 'God' he would've said 'God'. Whilst it is not wrong to view it like that, because all forms of art are supposed to have subjective interpretations, others have suggested that 'Godot' could mean 'Godillot'.
Godillot is a French military boot*, much like the one Estragon takes on and off. An idea is that the boot represents distractions [read a la Ra: distortions]; something to do all day 'When there isn't anything to be done.'
Further evidence for this is that Samuel Beckett was in the French military on an outpost. [Well, close. In World War II he served as an intelligence officer in the paramilitary French Resistance.] Perhaps he one day got bored, finding that the only interesting thing to do was to take on and off his boot?"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fr:Alexis_Godillot (1816-1893) maker of military footwear; colloquially, godillot has come to mean "clodhopper"

The playwright speaks: "It would be fatuous of me to pretend that I am not aware of the meanings attached to the word 'Godot', and the opinion of many that it means 'God'. But you must remember -- I wrote the play in French, and if I did have that meaning in my mind, it was somewhere in my unconscious and I was not overtly aware of it."

I like the way Coordinate_Apotheosis put it:
"Your Q: What is one communicating when they know nothing? My A: Beliefs."
I'd put it that most metaphysical talk is actually phatic noise communally uttered in group-conditioning-and-re-conditioning support of some cockamamie tribal belief-system, the more absurd the better, as only the purported Higher Whatever could possible perform the miracles required to wade through the nonsense to some effectual end, thus neatly supporting said H.W.'s unique Whateverness.

Compare these comments from Idries Shah: "All systems, cults, metaphysical groups and almost all human organisations practise conditioning."
And, "Words alone do not communicate: there must be something prepared, of which the words are a hint." And, "Answers are nothing. Experience is everything. But the answer gives you the wherewithal to acquire experience."
The idea is that the emitting-symbolic-noises-thing will work for all it's worth if folks in discussions using words of this or that language (with all their attendant cultural-bound semantic baggage of assumptions, beliefs, expectations, etc.) can remain conscious of the limited character of the linguistic approach to truth -- that it is at best only a temporary bridging tool between personal particularity and objective infinity**, and can keep in mind that yapping back and forth is only something to be employed until one can (through intelligent exploitation of language's limited uses for delivering useful information and patterns) perhaps find one's way to better tools, using more advanced, subtler means of communication.

** How's that for metaphysical jargon? I especially like the pseudo-significance of the alliteration. And just think, I wasn't even trying! My natural affinity for complete bull***tting coming out, that's all!

Meanwhile, if one dares to utter some perfectly reasonable statement along certain logical lines, people think that one is babbling mystically. For instance:
"The existence of a relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth."
Or if one speaks matter-of-factly about the challenges and work required after the verbalizing phase, even self-declared purportedly open-minded metaphysicians, (especially them) look askance:

[from an interview with Idries Shah by Elizabeth Hall, in Psychology Today, July 1975:]

Elizabeth Hall: Sufis also seem to take extra-sensory perception as a matter of course and as not very interesting.

Idries Shah: Not interesting at all. It is no more than a by-product. Let me give you a banal analogy. If I were training to be a runner and went out every day to run, I would get faster and faster and be able to run farther and farther with less fatigue. Now, I also find that I have a better complexion, my blood supply is better, and my digestion has improved. These things don't interest me; they are only by-products of my running. I have another objective. When people I am associated with become overwhelmed by ESP phenomena, I always insist they stop it, because their objective is elsewhere.

Hall: They are supposed to be be developing their potential; not attempting to read minds or move objects around. Do you think that researchers will one day explain the physical basis of ESP or do you think it will always elude them?

Shah: If I say it will elude the scientists, it will annoy the people who are able to get enormous grants for research into ESP. But I think, yes, a great deal more can be discovered providing the scientists are prepared to be good scientists. And by that I mean that they are prepared to structure their experiments successively in accordance with their discoveries. They must be ready to follow and not hew doggedly to their original working hypothesis. And they will certainly have to give up their concept of the observer being outside of the experiment, which has been their dearest pet for many years.
And another thing, as we find constantly in metaphysics, people who are likely to be able to understand and develop capacities for ESP are more likely to be found among people who are not interested in the subject.

Hall: Is that because disinterest is necessary to approach the subject properly?

Shah: Something like that. Being disinterested, you can approach ESP more coolly and calmly. The Sufis say: 'You will be able to exercise these supernatural powers when you can put out your hand and get a wild dove to land on it.' But the other reason why the people who are fascinated by ESP or metaphysics or magic are the last who should study it is that they are interested in it for the wrong reasons. It may be compensation. They are not equipped to study ESP. They are equipped for something else: fear, greed, hate, or love of humanity.

Hall: Often they have a desperate wish to prove that ESP is either true or false.

Shah: Yes, that's what I call heroism. But it's not professionalism and that's what the job calls for.

http://www.idriesshahfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/TheSufiTradition.pdf
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