You + I = You + I

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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