Returning to the question of the unthought is indispensable in answering to what it is to encounter human becoming – though the task is made difficult by the extent to which the unthought can also paralyse our ability to act, to be able to see in a certain sphere. Too it is often the case that this void of the unthought is covered over in the production of a discourse that does not see it, and the thus void deepens. Between forgotten Being and one fixed in language, the connecting bridge is cut.
The silence of between-two in listening to each other is not built upon emptiness of concept ,nor relentless flight between past and future in an ever widening circle. Rather, there is a difference between subjects to be encountered in the becoming of an elliptical dialectic, where each subject is recognisable in their alterity, referencing the other. The qualities and sources of impulse, resistance, withdrawal and restraint determine the shape of the ellipsis, and perfection of the shape comes through Beings interweaving attention to the other and to the contribution made in fidelity to the self, wherever possible securing a reference to the other, in speech act.
Here, mastery of the whole eludes each one, each one eclipsed by the other, in turn, invisibility and silence taking part in becoming. The body too, is not separated from the process, but is a part of the transformation and transfiguration of thinking, a recognition of the body as the source and the dwelling of Being, the blood-body link with other and others, with past and present and future being.
The other and the link with the other can never be cordoned off as a negativity, rather, there is a pretension to the Absolute, found in our own interior identities, through which we must accept the negative as marking an insurpassable limit, an unqualifiable unknown, in regards to the existence of the other in their difference.
Difference is safeguarded, in a way, as we integrate it into a transcendent and more accomplished level of being. This path is to discover the relational nature of Being, itself, linking Being and the human being. As a child wins autonomy and thus discovers what it is to enter into a relation with another, we can recover one element of this movement that becomes lost and forgotten to us in human life-time, difference itself. Humanness, as not one but two, two who are not halves nor complementary or opposed, but who can maintain a relation with respect to their difference(s).
Subjective becoming is then an ellipsis which describes the recouperation of all forgotten differences; where the rational scientist may allow that life form exists on a far flung planet and too that a lover, within his own home, who begins from a logic that is not his own, is himself, in being and becoming. The horizons extend ever outwards, thinking must always be birthed anew, and in a new language, of new shape.
Each human is, thus, in it’s beginning, at least, two, a twoness of difference, both Being and being in one identity. As for human couples, the being-Being relationship cannot be defined in an ultimate unity – this end is not defined completely by either one or the other and besides, escapes representation.
A + nonA = more than, and but, One.
This difference cannot take place inside a whole already constituted by thought of singular identity. It does not suffice to move back behind the closure of this world to find some whole truth – an emptiness must be opened, in our thinking such that attraction, that palpitation in difference, can emerge, fields of forces that rediscover each other in reality before representations paralyse and falsify this energy as a given of the real.
The Trilogy of the Real
It is possible to reduce this difference into a relation of simple naturalness or fulfilment of a biological destiny, in the case of sexual relation between beings of difference as man and woman; reproduction. Identity subsumed to animality.
Rather, taking account of the accomplishments of the subjects, individually, discloses dual reality, and a third, of their relation, emerges. These as three are never independent of each other, and cannot be founded on a single relation to a single sameness. No mirror fully captures this trilogy. Faithfulness to the real is more critical than definitive denomination of it. Welcoming the new consistently disclosed by the presence of the other must replace enclosure in knowledge already and historically acquired. None of the three worlds will be unresponsive to the arrival of newness; and no third party can, from the outside, administer or govern the relation of the three.
From the real one is, the perceptions one makes, and the existence in relation with the other each subject carries the gathering of the real present in the world.
In this way we participate in growth, in complex growth and cultural becoming in relation. Each subject comes to an utter standstill, before the other, respectful of the irreducible alterity of the other, helping each other’s growth as far as is appropriate to the beginning real, for each, faithful, to our own real, in acting.
The meeting point is thus shaped as a listening to the other, and returning to the other their own, original nature, pure and true. Relation is maintained in difference, and in this way, it is helpful to encounter difference, the other, within the space of one’s own interiority, without reducing that inner relation to one of finality, of expectation of conformity on behalf of the outer other. We cannot steal another’s energy to accumulate unfolding of our own Being. To hold the other as one at our disposal is to fail in human identity, to become a machine in the service of technique, a technologist in illusory relation.
Making/Letting Be
In this way we return to allowing an initial real to blossom, without substituting a product of technique for it, placing the causal within ourselves. Caring, for the emergence of our own becoming which is the encounter with coexistence, with other living beings – engendered by at least one, and strictly speaking two, in the beginning. Attending to our own singularity calls here the belongingness of the world, and the age in which we exist, these most-nearnesses, which are often directly assimilated into the self, in pluralism predominant in our time not even race or gender might distinguish our humanness. To restore allowable contrast, we must find difference within our own interiority, nurture other-being, in this blossoming space. Difference in soul-space, an unveiling of difference within as-me, accepted. Difference in making, and letting, be.
A new temporality of becoming might then emerge, articulated in attuning and attunement, to letting be and constructing, adjusted for each relation, interior being and exterior being. A duration enunciated where each moment consists in new encounter, in either relation, weaving, two voices, one never used for the production of the other, conjoining, rather two ways of safeguarding and cultivating truth. Each one has a role, to preserve and protect the other.
Engendered
It is not by overcoming distances that we find proximity to the other, the self or the world. It is rather the capacity to stay in oneself and proceed from oneself, while recognising the role of the other in blossoming, or becoming, that we might call engendering, of the providence of the self.
In body and soul, we originate from another from whom we must differ, as mother, and too with whom we must find alliance. This process, engendering, continues our whole lives, we do not become separated containers available for all that is poured in, the initial relation is never abolished.
The soul is not an empty space situated in being – the soul is already received, engendered, the space of the soul is already inhabited. A letting-grow takes place, in which the subject is conscious, and participates, both engendered and engendering. A child is engendered but as a conscious adult we must continue this process of separating and alliance in difference.
To blossom presupposes recognising the one who has engendered you, and remaining grateful, toward her. A place opens, where growth is not limited to what is given but expands, with receptivity, transforming instinctive attraction into manifestation according to what is appropriate for the desiring and desired of each, love both mortal and divine. The present always as an encounter-between in a space safeguarded by our attraction, an offering made by each one in the invitation to meet. Body and soul enter in, and the work of becoming oneself is intertwined with that of the other, where visible and invisible alternate.
What was designated as representation and symbol is here given over to presence in clear and utter relation, released for their obliteration of what is real. Releasing the pretension of knowing the other. Releasing what is proper or appropriate to only one, remaining faithful to the real, and to soul, in the free play of consciousness which is the spirit of all peoples. Poetry, illumined.
Ref: Irigaray, L. (2002). The Way of Love. London: Continuum. 98 - 136.
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