You're Not a Self, You Silly Elf

`Self-discovery` is a mutual, mirroring act. The self can see the self, to a degree, better than another can, but not without the mirror of the Other. Self is not a reference point for itself. Insofar as it is, it's equally a reference point for Other. Self exists only with recourse to an entity outside of itself which interacts and overlaps with it. If self interacts only with Self, there is no awareness, identity, unity or evolution. In real life, there is division, there is unity: Without the one, you cannot have the other. The joy of unity is meaningless if there can be no mystic mingling between related but simultaneously distinct selves. Absolute selfhood is a delusion, a blindness to Self and Other, a distortion of reality. It is not only because of communities that we see or have Self. And yet we cannot see or have Self without other intercoursing selves.

Brought to you by another Quiet Sunday Evening.

~NpH