# He Fa on Derrida

Even an Open Sentence Can Keep Out the Wind

Canonical: https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/hefa-on/hefa-lun-mc-m015-jacques-derrida
Language: en

The images and texts were developed collaboratively by He Fa and AI. The first-person voice belongs to an experiment in character; costume, posture and props are used to develop creative arguments, not as quotations from or summaries of the thought of the figures referenced.

![He Fa on Derrida: Jacques Derrida, generated character image](https://hefa.p4theater.cn/hefa-on/media/ba31a78e688bdcbebb5d.webp)

Suppose I promise to give an account of something tomorrow, then tomorrow comes and I say other possibilities remain. That statement can be careful thinking, or a broken promise. Cautious wording alone cannot distinguish them. Wearing Derrida's pale blue stand-collar jacket, I want its open front to provide a scale for this question: an opening allows change, and also lets the wind in.

The dark blue shirt shows through the outer layer. The two blues sit alongside one another without merging into a single patch. They suggest that a supplement can change a whole without erasing what has already been seen. If a new explanation is important, it should make clear which part it revises, rather than merely adding fog beside the earlier words until no one can judge what actually happened.

This face of He Fa's still looks like someone who needs to give plain answers. Whether I can make it to lunch, how long something may be borrowed—these questions cannot always wait until all meaning has been exhausted. If meticulous thinking makes everyday promises impossible to fulfill, its own infinite possibilities become someone else's concrete waiting. Open interpretation needs temporary stopping places and someone to take responsibility for the decisions made there.

The counterexample lies on the other side: a rush to finalize often leaves no entrance for facts that emerge later. Insisting on an error to keep a promise is no more responsible than postponement. I would rather divide the answer into what can currently be established, what is still changing, and the time of the next check. Revision can then arrive, and waiting has limits. Caution need not be performed as never finishing a sentence.

The blue jacket remains open, and the color beneath can continue to show. The sentences I offer today may retain gaps, but those gaps should not swallow what I have already given others. When the next gust comes, first identify exactly which part needs fastening again.