-Take a syzygy for instance

-A what?

-A syzygy. It’s when three celestial bodies line up. Like when there’s a solar or lunar eclipse—that’s a syzygy between the Sun, the Moon and Earth. Conceptually you could draw a straight line through all three. That’s a syzygy, a linear conjunction of three celestial bodies. It actually has meaning in many fields beyond astronomy but that’s the one I’m most familiar with.

-O.K. Syzygy. But what does that have to do with your “problem of the other?”

-Umm, let me see. Take the syzygal conjunction of the Earth and the Sun with the moon in between the two. This would be an extreme example of the specific other problem I’m getting at, but basically what I am interested in is the absence created by the moon’s interference with the space between the Earth and the Sun. Actually, let’s pretend that we have two suns, one at each end of an invisible line with Earth-like planet directly in the middle of the two. Following me?

-Yeah, two Sun’s facing each other with an Earth in the middle of them.

-Ok, good. So it doesn’t necessarily matter where the placement of the Earth in between the two is. All I’m concerned about is its representation of absence. As in, there is a shadow cast upon the face of each Sun, and at the same time the Earth either fully or partially blacks out the other Sun. So how this relates to the problem of the other is that the idea of a person, be it your lover, your friend, or just some stranger asking you directions are a Sun at the opposite end of a syzygy where your idea of that person, the image of that person, and most importantly the language that they speak, intermingles with their image, idea and language to create an alien world in between the two of you which becomes nothing but a shadow, which is worst when you are in direct alignment with one another.

-Wait, what!? I mean I get what you’re saying conceptually. At least I think. But I really think your over thinking things here. I mean I don’t know if you should read more philosophy or just stop reading philosophy because I think things are a little simpler than all this crap. Why can’t I just take you for who you are?

-Because, who I am is a man of Ideas, of metaphors. You are a man of things and actions, probably more of a man than I could hope to be. But the simple point of the matter is that you’re proving my point. Sure you can feel things for me, you can have emotional resonation like compassion, and you can see yourself in me. But you cannot be me. And once you come to that conclusion, you come to the ultimate paradox, that being that there is nothing to be but your own unique self. But your self is created by interaction with everything that is not you, everything that you can only relate to by deception or adherence to false dogmas and ideas, or at best the resonation of emotion which some call God. But after one see’s these for their deceptive and metaphorical nature, what then are you left to relate to other than absence, other than the shadow that exists in between you and everything else?

-Shit, man. Can you just shut the fuck up and I’ll buy you some ice cream.