"I think in dead ends." (aka Buber's I-You relation)

I remember talking to a good friend of mine, years ago, describing the absolute frustration I encounter, in many of my attempts during the process of thinking.

I told him,
"I think in dead ends."

My friend laughed out hysterically (and for quite a while, too, to my consternation) and told his second brother. And his brother thought : dumb. Still does, in fact. Its no secret that I hate his brother. :)

"You're talking about a paradox, Claire."

In any case, ... and there began a wonderful friendship that still exists up to this day: sturdy, stable, strong and unbendable.

Maturity and experience goes a long way. And yet, I am still a long way from the end. But the things that we pick up along the road that we travel shape us and our understanding of the world, and ourselves. In the midst of all this, I came across many articles that spoke of ideas. Ideas that piqued me, ideas that brought forth ideals, ideas that were vulgar and with hypocrasy. But one of them, expounded on what exactly I felt and what I was contemplating that day when I told my friend about dead-ends.

Why reinvent the wheel, when someone else has described my state so perfectly?

An excerpt that I will probably bring with me wherever I go. From I and Thou
by Martin Buber, translated by Walter Kaufman. It is in my opinion, the definitive definition of Buber's I-You relation:

... Or man encounters being and becoming as what confronts him - always only one being and every thing only as a being. What is there reveals itself to him in the occurence, and what occurs there happens to him as being. Nothing else is present but this one, but this one cosmically. Measure and comparison have fled. It is up to you how much of the immeasurable becomes reality for you. The encounters do not order themselves to become a world, but each is for you a sign of the world order. They have no association with each other, but every one guarantees your association with the world. The world that appears to you in this way is unreliable, for it appears always new to you, and you cannot take it by its word. It lacks density, for everything in it permeates everything else. It lacks duration, for it comes even when not called and vanishes even when you cling to it. It cannot be surveyed: if you try to make it surveyable, you lose it. It comes-comes to fetch you-and if it does not reach you or encounter you it vanishes, but it comes again, transformed. It does not stand outside you, it touches your ground; and if you say "soul of my soul" you have not said too much. But beware of trying to transpose it into your soul-that way you destroy it. It is your present; you have a present only insofar as you have it;and you can make it into an object for you and experience and use it-you must do that again and again-and then you have no present anymore. Between you and it there is a reciprocity of giving: you say You to it and give yourself to it; it says You to you and gives itself to you. You canot come to an understanding about it with others; you are lonely with it; but it teaches you to encounter others and to stand your ground in such encounters; and through the grace of its advents and the melancholy of its departures it leads you to that You in which the lines of relation, though parallel, intersect. It does not help you to survive; it only helps you to have intimations of eternity.

The It-world hangs together in space and time.
The You-world does not hang together in space and time.
The individual You must become an It when the even of relation has run its course.
The individual It can become a You by entering into the event of relation.


... These are the two basic privileges of the It-World. They induce man to consider the It-world as the world in which one has to live and also can live comfortably - and that even offers us all sorts of stimulations and excitements, activities and knowledge. In this firm and wholesome chronicle the You-moments appear as queer lyric-dramatic episodes. Their spell may be seductive, but they pull us dangerously to extremes, loosening the well-tried structure, leaving behind more doubt than satisfaction, shaking up our security - altogether uncanny, altogether indispensable. Since one must after all return into "the world", why not stay in it in the first place? Why not call to order that which confronts us and send it home into objectivity?

One cannot live in the pure present: it would consume us if care were not taken that it is overcome quickly and thoroughtly. But in pure past one can live; in fact, only there can a life be arranged. One only has to fill every moment with experiencing and using, and it ceases to burn.


And in all the seriousness of truth, listen: without It a human being cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human.


We've all come a long way... still a long way to go! :)