The terrible, wonderful truth is that we are all totally transparent to each other; there is no place to hide. Why not stop trying? No sly, tacit agreement to act as if no one can really know what it is like to be another can change what is in fact the case: I know what it is like to be you and you know what it is like to be me. How could it be otherwise? How else would love be possible? It is a truth so fundamental to our being in the world that it is easy to miss altogether. Or maybe it is a reality that would threaten to overwhelm the space we have marked out as our own private realm. Of course, being a man, I don't know what it is like to give birth, but I do know what it is like to be. That is enough. More than enough. It saves us from the objectification of the other. That's no small thing. It is, as Heraclitus, might say, a matter of perspective: the way up and the way down are one and the same.
Hodos ano kato
Your hand my hand his hand her hand our hand and hand in hand it on.
Who is there is here is there is here so there.
What it is like to be me is what it is like to be what it is like to be you.
Just so much is exactly who we are no more no less you than me no more me than you.
That is just so that is just that so that is that.