You and I are clearly quite different. It is good grammar, not courtesy, that places the
You before
I, places unto
You some air of greater importance. The importance of the both of
Us is completely unknown to each other, after all, who am
I to say that
You are more important than
I; that
I am more important than
You. It is an non-entity else completely subjective. It is something that
we can never be sure of. All that is known is that
I am inside this body and
You are inside that one; that
I can never be in your body and
You never in mine. The euphemism here was unintentional but let
Us run with it for a moment.
We all desire the
Other. If
I were to place that desire in my (Lacanian non-physical) phallus,
I would want to be inside
You. The discovery of the
Other. To know that which
I am not sure even exists. All
I know is all
I am and there is a longing to step outside of that and to step inside of
You; for how can
I ever truly connect with
You if
I cannot know
You. This drive
I now have is also the
Other, it comes from an unknown entity within. So my desire for the external unknown stems from an internal unknown; if
I do not know
that, how will
I ever truly connect with myself? It is enough to drive one crazy.
"We are first of all, as friends, the friends of solitude, and we are calling on you to share what cannot be shared: solitude" -- Nietzsche
But what of
You and
I. How will
We ever combine? How do
We take the
You and the
I and bring them into matrimony? How can
We transform our respective singularities into, not necessarily a universality, but a connectivity, a relation, a
singular duality. Watch as these words fall through my body, to my fingers, onto a keyboard, through binary, onto the screen of my computer, into the ether of the internet where, hopefully (although dependent on blog popularity and further than that, whether I am holding your attention),
You have received it. Notice as the words enter your body through the retina of the eyes,
You begin to interpret and understand. Have
I made a connection? Are
we in some form of exchange where in
you somehow gain knowledge of
me through the words
I write? Perhaps. But is that a connection? Are you not in fact understanding this based on a system
You have within yourself, a system of knowledge, a system of semiotics, a system of experiences - experience that
I can only tap accidentally. It is my belief that it is only when you hit that latter raw nerve that connectivity becomes aflame.
We are no longer a
You and a
I,
We are now a
'We', an
'Us' - Or we are somehow more than that, maybe friends, maybe lovers, maybe enemies, but
We are still separate.
On conversing:
"the relation whereby the one whom I cannot reach becomes present in his inaccessible truth" -- Blanchot
If
You and
I begin to engage in conversation, or interact, then
You and
I become a
We/Us. See how those two words
"We" and
"Us" are formed. Two letters. One for the
Other (You) and one for the
I. Two, a duo. They are still unconnected, they are still a duality; although condensed they remain
You and
I. The
'U' and the '
S' do not merge and conceive a new letter, a singularity, they still signify two separate letters, only now in union through the mode of a word*. The only place that a connection has been formed is the space between those letters, the space in which
we converse.
"[A]s long as 'we' are engaged in conversation...'I' can't get a fix on 'you'; 'you' remain both unbearably close and inaccessible." -- Dianne Davis
The word
'I', in reference to the self, (myself or whatever
Other self chooses it) is in fact the only personal pronoun which signifies a singularity. A One. An
'I'. And
'You' further signifies our relationship to the
Other. Three letters. No longer a duo in conversation. The letter '
Y' touches the
'O' but never the
'U', the
'U' touches the
'O' but never the
'Y', and the
'O' acts as a mediator between the '
Y' and the
'U', keeping them separate, ensuring they do not interact.
Perhaps then this psychological business of the
Other of mental and physical distance is not what separates
You and
I. Perhaps it is nothing more than letters, words, conversations organised into systems. Something that may or may not be innate, that has developed in order to unite
Us, but so far has only heightened the differences and mis-communication between
Us.
I'm sorry that it had to end this way. In fact
I didn't want it to end at all. But now that it is over, know that
You are still embedded within
I and occasionally it rises to interrupt my discourse, only to be swallowed back down, hard. The
Other.
You.
*A thought that needs developing: The connectivity we achieve through love is still a desperate act to become the Other, to gain knowledge of the Other. Perhaps the act of love making is as close as humanity can get to transcending a two to become a one. This is perhaps where 'Jouissance' (mentioned in a previous post) leads in it's displacement. Sexual intercourse is perhaps the most effective form of relief for the exploration of the unknown Other. Two combine to form a one - the conception of a child. However, if this is blocked via contraception then merge is unsuccessful and 'jouissance' can only be relieved temporarily through orgasm, which leads back down to the Cat and Mouse scenario.
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