"No. You don't. But that's all right, because I don't really know me either, let alone you. We never understand anybody, not even ourselves... what we know: Not me, not you, but what we are, who we are together." -- Shadow Puppets.
I was gettting really annoyed with this routine until I got to this part and remembered the scripture: "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent."
But there is a reason why making my "relation", as Kierkegaard had it, to God my "Self". With him I am a child, with the capacity to grow and increase. Do I ever get there? Perhaps as in the race between Achilles* and the tortoise, not. I go half of any distance before I travel that distance. Motion is, in strict reason, impossible. Good thing God transcends time.
I think the relation is built not through knowing in the mortal sense, but in trusting. We can do this with people as well, though we risk losing ourselves if we do not trust God first. Risking losing yourself sounds romantic, but you become no good to the other person when this happens.
*This is a foundational example of the problem with logic in introductory philosophy courses and not a reference to the Shadow books.
[ September 07, 2006, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by formic rising (Member # 9172) on :
it's knowing the risk that is romantic. becoming no good and having that person see you through the worst and both of you still end up on top.. that's romantic dedication.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
But it's not a risk, one of you will swallow the other.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
I would have thought that risking losing yourself sounded romantic when I was a bit younger - now it sounds repulsive! Maybe because you would become fairly useless to the other person. And to yourself, I'd think!
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:2 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
1 Corinthians 13:12
Perhaps that quote from Tolstoy (though I don't know if it was a sympathetic character who said it) was right. "The only truth that man can know for certain is that life is meaningless." It is not a statement of despair, but an acknowledgement of the emptiness of the search for truth in mortality. That was what I found nihilistic about Bean saying "I can't know anyone, I don't even know myself." But if it is the truth, it liberates you. It is not my burden to bear, this self-knowledge.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
What would be nihilistic would be to stop trying. Each new pass gives us more data, helps us sort things out better. We can't REACH truth, but we can come closer, and weed out more error.
Posted by formic rising (Member # 9172) on :
i dont think it's age dependent- the "romantic risk." certainly anyone has a point of unknowing. my grandparents clearly knew that they'd spend the rest of their lives together at the age of 15 but didnt know what risk was involved. through thick and thin they saw eachother through. even if one swallowed the other up.. they still, eventually, found a way to stand, or sit these days, side by side.
maybe they were looking for a truth of their own at times. in the end, the "truths" they shared with one another were the only ones that mattered.
Posted by Libbie (Member # 9529) on :
Nice story, formic, and yes, it's not age-dependent - it's just that that age was when it would have sounded really interesting to me. I didn't mean to ascribe childishness to it. Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
It seemed nihilistic to me the first couple of times he says it. But I decided it wasn't.
My grandparents were a weird case. They stayed together all the way to the end, but never stopped fighting, and I wouldn't say one swallowed up the other.
But wasn't the point about Valentine that she was too compassionate to do what needed to be done? Not that very many people could have done it. In the later books she comes across as pretty tough, but a lot of that was a personality she grew into, probably from working with Peter and from her study of history. Maybe.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)