Solipsism, as an extreme philosophy, might not be true. In
its simple characterizations, only I exist, and everyone else and everything
else is a figment of my imagination.
But as a way of understanding life - the human condition in
particular - solipsism isn’t entirely wrong. I don’t really feel your pain and
you don’t feel mine. Joy works that way too. We as humans share many things. We
are connected to each other in many ways. But it is a deep mystery that we each
remain ourselves to a very significant degree.
And it seems to get weirder. The pain I feel might indeed exceed
yours (if we could find a way to fully measure such things). A parent might
feel a kind of pain I can’t begin to understand, watching a child struggling to
breathe, wondering if I, in the middle of a major asthma attack might not make
it till morning, for example. I was only the one mostly struggling to breathe. I did
not feel what my parents felt.
Where all these feelings and sensations come from and where
they all go has led a lot of people into religious realms I don’t care to
tread. But new neurological and psychological understandings of the mind don’t
erase – and in some ways they enhance - the mystery of my existence and yours.
Here’s a simpler way to start: I am apart. And I am
together.
One doesn’t need the words to all fit precisely. They - the
words - don’t really exist. At least, not in the same way that I do. Words are
more correctly a figment of our imagination. But nevertheless, words are a
primary way we express our thoughts and feelings, and so in part, they’ll have
to do.
But distinctions should be noted and remembered, if only so
that we can then momentarily forget that we don’t know everything and thus we
can still imagine that we know something.
Faith is a word. But the act of believing something you
can’t fully know – that is something more.
Again you shouldn’t get mired too deeply in the many
constructed religious ideas that go along with words like faith and belief. The
act of walking across the street takes a little faith. The light turns green
and I don’t know if you will turn right, driving in your car, striking my body
as it steps off the curb. I look quickly over my shoulder and I imagine your
hesitation as a sign - and I walk.
Is that act of faith as big as it can get? As small? Nevertheless
if you ask me if I have some faith, well, the answer is ‘yes.’ Descartes
famously said, ‘I exist, therefore I am.’ I not so famously reply, I imagine,
therefore I have faith.
These are all just words, I must remind you.
Here’s the thing: I am here. You are there. We could have
something to eat and drink together. We could laugh at something that will be
forgotten tomorrow. We could consider what it all means. And I suppose we will
do all those things.
We should try to keep our words as close to our experience
as we can manage. I don’t know as much as I would like to, but I think I know a
few things. I imagine other things.
That bread we will eat came from wheat that grew from a seed
that came from a plant that grew from another seed - and you can keep going
farther back than any of us were born. You and I can imagine whatever we want
about where and how it all came from. But today let’s give thanks for our daily
bread. Would you like some butter on that bread? Or apricot jam?
When my parents had company, my mom would sometimes take the
jam out of the jar and put it into a glass dish with a spoon in it. Can you
believe that? And I can imagine my parents would be glad to see me still
breathing if only they themselves were still here with us. Life moves on.
Would you like some beer or wine? Or would you prefer water?
I don’t know that my dad ever even tried much besides water. He enjoyed
knocking coffee as often as he could. I imagine he got some pleasure from his
stale jokes because I, his progeny, also like to make a thing out of the joys
of drinking ice water myself. But at this point, I believe more about my dad
than I can know, I think.
I’m not only playing with words, here. And ‘playing’ is not
quite the right word - and not quite the wrong word for what I am doing with this
bit of writing. I am looking for ways that you and I can be together and not
feel as apart as we sometimes feel.
It’s only a metaphor, but we can only imagine what will happen
when we step off the curb.
So would you like something to eat or drink? I’ll tell you
what I can remember. You tell me what you remember. Maybe we’ll share a laugh
or a tear.
It’ll take some faith to imagine that some of what we think
doesn’t matter as much as we think.
At least for now, we’re here - together.
