songs of the soul

"It is difficult to think of an origin without wanting to go back beyond it" (Eagleton, 1992, p. 131)

post-structuralism, interesting. although i am still figuring out what this sentence actually means. i am guessing that it means that since meanings are an articulation of signs, and signs consists of signifiers and signifieds that are constantly altered by the various chains of signifiers in which it is entagled, nothing is fixed. nothing means anything except because of its relation and it difference relative to other signs. "signs being themselves only because they are not some other signs" (p. 129). blue is not turquoise because it is not turquoise. there is no end-point to meanings, everything is caught up and traced through by something else, one signifier only leads you on to another signifier, and yet another. so where is the origin? like a chain of pearls strung together in a circular, where is the starting point and where is the end? there is no way of finding out but still, we want to know exactly what we do not know.