Mutual Identification and Epistemic Solitude, 19 October 2017

“Not everybody became friends with everybody else. They began to develop that particular sense of belonging that is based on mutual identification. This was the real miracle: the children were rescued from their epistemic solitude.” ~Daniel Dor on the spontaneous development of a full sign language among deaf Nicaraguan children

I’ll set the immediate scene for you,
One last time, but, as always, sloppily.
A rickety bench leaned on a restored ruin:
White contrails above a black-red butterfly,
An empty birdhouse swaying on a pole
That also held up a solar-powered light
With a hypersensitive motion sensor,
Clicking on and off in the sunshine and wind.
A small, bent man sat alone on the bench.
If you share these names with me, then
You and I share many things. This is,
However, not my story. This is your story,
And I am never more than a guest in it.
Tornerai, si. But I’m not coming back.
I’m carrying the chains home. I don’t want
Any more miracles rescuing me from my
Epistemic solitude. You know what mutual
Identification means? We love each other,
You and I, us against the world, us against
Them. We’re a team. What’s going to work?
Teamwork! You see? Cooperation is murder.
Rescued by our longing to communicate
We begin to form cells, a re-enactment
Of the first bilipid layers to demarcate
Outer from inner phobias. We admit. We
Process. We use. We reject. We no longer
Enjoy our former epistemic solitude, no
Longer suffer from our unfulfilled desire
To share our experiences with one another
But not with the others. We are alive in a way
That is not one with our bodies being alive.
We are a many-headed beast, conversing.
Have you ever considered the affinity,
The longing for certain chain reactions
It took to get organisms up and running
In the first place? (Nick Lane has. Ask him.)
And now your longing for me or someone
Like me, or for someone as utterly unlike me
As you could imagine, my longing for you
Or someone like you, or for someone as
Utterly unlike you as I imagine, causes us,
Insofar as anything can be said to cause
Anything, to bud off into competing cells,
To war with those we do not love, those
Who do not love us. Oh, what am I saying?
These thin lines are like the threads that held
The giant Gulliver fast to the ground, but
These lines do not define the monstrous
Being they outline and barely, all together,
Manage to confine. I am that monster, terata.
I want to be held so tightly I can never move,
And I want to be alone so I can vanish
From this netting with which I contained me.
A human is a silkworm who can’t escape
The result without destroying it. That’s why
We’re so much more useful to each other
Once enough of us are boiled and unwound.
The sun has set. Let it set already, damn it.
No more sermons on who is really moving,
Who is truly moved. Crickets now and, truly,
Tonight, the rarity, noctilucence over mesas.