stranger in me

Sometimes I feel even my desires are a stranger to me. Lost in the pleasures of the expectations of pleasure, my desires lead my soul to mirrors that reflect everything but me. I am that all which I am not. And the one I meet there seems not to know me either yet looks at me while looking through me from every direction in endless depths of the mirrors.

The Gaze of the other, Sartre's gaze or even Lacan's  is not restricted to the visual presence of that other but even a mere suggestion of the presence (Sartre sites the example of footsteps in a garden in which he thought till that point he was alone).

What do we do with this other, my constant non-companion that dwells in me who's gaze would not allow me to celebrate the freedom that is me.

march 2012

smiles and strangers

Strangers

He flashed his lovely smile which seemed to lighten up his otherwise dark brooding countenance. An angelic smile, a  genuine smile, which was no longer genuine after he had realized its worth and had learned the charming effect it had on others. He had learned to use it, and use it effectively. But in this case the smile had come quite naturally. He knew that man would remember him now if he would go to him again, not that he would in all likelihood. A strange city, a strange road, and a strange turn and at a corner this strange yet so familiar,  small shop with its almost old owner. Exchanges. Both of goods and a smile. In the silent exchange of money that so coldly characterizes each transaction, a relationship had been struck that still anchored in the silence of all noise, was brightened with a tiny little bit of warmth that emanated from that smile. An acknowledgement.

We were strangers once. We still are. We acknowledge we are strangers now. That is all we can ever know.  That is all we can ever be.


3/31/2012, 6:21 AM