{"id":16921,"date":"2015-06-26T12:41:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T16:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16921"},"modified":"2022-08-24T13:49:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T17:49:29","slug":"the-difference-between-we-are-and-we-are-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/the-difference-between-we-are-and-we-are-not\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Between “We Are” and “We Are Not”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'It's<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “‘It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment,'” a quotation from Gabriel Garcia Marquez used as the title of this photo by user ‘hazara’ (Hadi Zaher) on Flickr<\/a>. (Image used here under a Creative Commons license.) The passage quoted appears in Marquez’s <\/em>One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Celebration… is self restraint, is attentiveness, is questioning, is meditating, is awaiting, is the step over into the more wakeful glimpse of the wonder — the wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things are and we ourselves are in their midst, that we ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know all this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Martin Heidegger [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Music Is In The Piano Only When It Is Played<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are not one with this world. We are not
\nthe complexity our body is, nor the summer air
\nidling in the big maple without purpose.
\nWe are a shape the wind makes in these leaves
\nas it passes through. We are not the wood
\nany more than the fire, but the heat which is a marriage
\nbetween the two. We are certainly not the lake
\nnor the fish in it, but the something that is
\npleased by them. We are the stillness when
\na mighty Mediterranean noon subtracts even the voices of
\ninsects by the broken farmhouse. We are evident
\nwhen the orchestra plays, and yet are not part
\nof the strings or brass. Like the song that exists
\nonly in the singing, and is not the singer.
\nGod does not live among the church bells
\nbut is briefly resident there. We are occasional
\nlike that. A lifetime of easy happiness mixed
\nwith pain and loss, trying always to name and hold
\non to the enterprise under way in our chest.
\nReality is not what we marry as a feeling. It is what
\nwalks up the dirt path, through the excessive heat
\nand giant sky, the sea stretching away.
\nHe continues past the nunnery to the old villa
\nwhere he will sit on the terrace with her, their sides
\ntouching. In the quiet that is the music of that place,
\nwhich is the difference between silence and windlessness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jack Gilbert [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

On the Existence of the Soul<\/strong><\/p>\n

How confident I am it is there. Don’t I bring it,
\nAs if it were enclosed in a fine leather case,
\nTo particular places solely for its own sake?
\nHaven’t I set it down before the variegated canyon
\nAnd the undeviating bald salt dome?
\nDon’t I feed it on ivory calcium and ruffled
\nShell bellies, shore boulders, on the sight
\nOf the petrel motionless over the sea, its splayed
\nFeet hanging? Don’t I make sure it apprehends
\nThe invisibly fine spray more than once?<\/p>\n

I have seen that it takes in every detail
\nI can manage concerning the garden wall and its borders.
\nI have listed for it the comings and goings
\nOf one hundred species of insects explicitly described.
\nI have named the chartreuse stripe
\nAnd the fimbriated antenna, the bulbed thorax
\nAnd the multiple eye. I have sketched
\nThe brilliant wings of the trumpet vine and invented
\nNew vocabularies describing the interchanges between rocks
\nAnd their crevices, between the holly lip
\nAnd its concept of itself.<\/p>\n

And if not for its sake, why would I go
\nOut into the night alone and stare deliberately
\nStraight up into 15 billion years ago and more?<\/p>\n

I have cherished it. I have named it.
\nBy my own solicitations
\nI have proof of its presence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Pattiann Rogers [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Descartes’ Loneliness<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toward evening, the natural light becomes
\nintelligent and answers, without demur:
\n“Be assured! You are not alone….”<\/em>
\nBut in fact, toward evening, I am not
\nconvinced there is any other except myself
\nto whom existence necessarily<\/em> pertains.
\nI also interrogate myself to discover
\nwhether I myself<\/em> possess any power
\nby which I can bring it about that I
\nwho now am shall exist another moment.<\/p>\n

Because I am mostly a thinking thing
\nand because this precise question can only
\nbe from that thoughtful part of myself,
\nif such a power did reside within me
\nI should, I am sure, be conscious of it….
\nBut I am conscious of no such power.
\nAnd yet, if I myself cannot be
\nthe cause of that assurance, surely
\nit is necessary to conclude that
\nI am not alone in the world. There is<\/p>\n

some other who is the cause of that idea.
\nBut if, at last, no such other can be
\nfound toward evening, do I really have
\nsufficient assurance of the existence
\nof any other being at all? For,
\nafter a most careful search, I have been
\nunable to discover the ground<\/em> of that
\nconviction—unless it be imagined a lonely
\nworkman on a dizzy scaffold unfolds
\na sign at evening and puts his mark to it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Allen R. Grossman [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Starry Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.
\n— Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother<\/span><\/p>\n

The town does not exist
\nexcept where one black-haired tree slips
\nup like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
\nThe town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
\nOh starry starry night! This is how
\nI want to die.<\/p>\n

It moves. They are all alive.
\nEven the moon bulges in its orange irons
\nto push children, like a god, from its eye.
\nThe old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
\nOh starry starry night! This is how
\nI want to die:<\/p>\n

into that rushing beast of the night,
\nsucked up by that great dragon, to split
\nfrom my life with no flag,
\nno belly,
\nno cry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Sexton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “‘It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment,’” a quotation from Gabriel Garcia Marquez used as the title of this photo by user ‘hazara’ (Hadi Zaher) on Flickr. (Image used here under a Creative Commons license.) The passage quoted appears in Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251,372],"tags":[1719,1837,3015,3833,4075,4076,4077],"class_list":{"0":"post-16921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-style-and-craft","13":"tag-anne-sexton","14":"tag-pattiann-rogers","15":"tag-jack-gilbert","16":"tag-martin-heidegger","17":"tag-gabriel-garcia-marquez","18":"tag-allen-r-grossman","19":"tag-existence","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4oV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16921"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25732,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16921\/revisions\/25732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}