To be Fortunate

To be Fortunate

Rustam Singh

This paper meditates on the notions of the self and the other and on the relation between the two. At the same time, it questions the notion of the other. As it says: “There is no other; only a self out there: out of, away from us.” Following from this, it throws up three new notions: those of ‘the other self’, ‘the other-than-self’, and ‘the self-less one’. 

To be fortunate means to be able to think, to be able to receive thought, to be able to respond to it from the very centre of one’s being, and to be able to do all of this despite the twists in one’s fortune.[1]

However, there is a kind of thinking, a kind of ability to think which comes with that particular twist in fortune which can only be called misfortune, a twist that makes a man unfortunate. But the coming of this thinking, along with misfortune, makes him fortunate again: because of this coming, this arrival what he loses in misfortune is recompensed in such a way that his very reflection on what he has lost becomes the compensation for it.

Nevertheless, this reflection does not take away the feeling of having lost what is no longer there: this feeling can never be taken away, it always remains. We continue to feel throughout our life the absence of what we have lost; we continue to miss it till our dying moment. But the fact that we are able to think about it in a certain way mitigates the feeling of absence, makes it bearable. And we continue to live despite the absence.[2]

To live without what we have lost is different from what living would have been if it were present. It is necessary to underline this difference: it is too often forgotten in the grief caused by absence. In this grief––or in the memory which replaces it, or does not fully replace it, memory with or without grief––we keep thinking of what we have lost without thinking as much of the difference it has made to our life. We get focused on the object of loss (which is also a subject, a person) and keep thinking of it even when we are almost fully engrossed in a life without it. At times our engrossment in the life without this object is so deep that the object seems to have become infructuous. And yet we continue to think about it. It is as if we do not want to give it up even when it does not seem to have a place any more in our life, even when we feel that it should no more have a place. Sometimes we actively want to get rid of it but it does not leave. We want to be rid of it not because we do not miss it any more but because we feel that we would be better off without it. At such times the object of our loss almost seems to have become a nuisance. Which would mean that it was never fully irreplaceable, that it has already been replaced.

And yet the feeling of having lost it, the memory of it does not go away.

Why is this so?

It is so because the object or objects that appear to have replaced it have actually made a new place for themselves and in the process have occupied this place: they do not occupy the place of the object that has been lost.[3]

It is not that we ourselves do not play a role in making this place for the new object. After a point we are actively engaged in it. And so, after another point there is another object that can be lost and can cause grief and evoke memory.

This new object––this object that, too, can be lost––is it not a source of potential misfortune, like the object that has been lost? It is, and yet we are fortunate to have it. Having it, apart from giving us the joy of having it, gives us, too, the possibility that we would lose it. By losing it, we would think about its loss, we would think about losing and the loss in general. That is how we have always been able to think about the loss of objects that were dear to us. That is how too we came to know the grief of losing and the memory of the object we had lost.

This grief and this memory were the gifts of the experience of losing.

This way we were fortunate.

We are fortunate also in that even if we do not lose this new object––even if this experience never comes to be––we can think about the loss that can take place. Thinking about this loss we can understand, at least to a degree, what it can mean to us and also to others, who too can lose the objects that are dear to them. This understanding can make us fearful of the future but it can also make us humble, bring some humility to us, creatures who tend to be too proud of themselves and too neglectful of the other.

* * *

Being neglectful of the other is also a misfortune but it is rarely perceived to be so. However, it is a misfortune that does not bring us any thought, any thinking and as such does not make us fortunate. On the contrary, it stems from a poverty of thought, an impoverishment of the soul, a soul that will completely shrivel up, will fall into an abyss of impoverishment if it fails to reverse its course.

Being neglectful of the other, being indifferent to it, is, as such, the greatest misfortune that can befall us. It is a misfortune that literally falls down upon us because it leads to a fall; we fall down with it, down into an abyss. Or it is a consequence of a fall that has already taken place. Only a fallen soul––fallen from thought, from thinking––is so reckless, so impudent that it forgets to be regardful of the other. However, one cannot be sure that this disregard is only a forgetting; more often it is a failure or even a refusal. We refuse to see the profile of the other; we take a decision not to listen to its pleading.

The other pleads to us but because we have blocked our mind to thinking, have shut out thought from our soul, we persist in our folly of ignoring it. Thereby we persist too in perpetuating our greatest misfortune which is another name for our greatest loss. For, it is not the loss of the object, the person who is dear to us which is our greatest loss; it is the very loss of the other––the other who comes in multiple forms.

The forms are multiple and so is the other. We have to overcome the propensity to look for only the form of the dear one among all these forms of the other. To overcome this propensity is perhaps the most difficult of the tasks we are faced with. For it is not easy not to single out the form––the figure––one is most familiar with. Nevertheless, this familiarity must be extended to all the other forms around us. It is only after we have done this that the figure which is closest to us reveals its proper place in our life. Most often this place is inflated beyond its true proportions, to the detriment of the figures standing next to it. On the other hand, because of this inflation we lack a deeper understanding of the very figure which is the closest and of its true relation with us but like to believe that we have this understanding. Therefore we are led to be disregardful of the other figures around us.

With this disregard we stop nourishing our soul. Secondly, when our own soul is not nourished, it stops contributing to the nourishment of the souls of those around us. These include the very people who are dear to us, the people in order to protect whose existence––along with the existence that is our own––we in the first place begin to disregard the other. In this way we initiate and perpetuate a cycle of lack of nourishment of the souls in the circle which is, so to say, closest to us. Gradually this lack of nourishment of the souls, in a circle whose centre we become, gets extended outside this narrow circle and embraces many people in an expanding circle.

When we become indifferent to the other, we forget that the people who are dear to us are also our other. They are no doubt entangled more intricately with us as compared with the people who are at a greater distance, but this does not make them a part of our self. Our self, howsoever complex a connection it has with them, ultimately stands apart from them. This being so, the people who are closest to us cannot remain unaffected or even untargeted by our indifference towards the other: they would sooner or later become a victim of the growing un-generosity of our soul. This means that our indifference to the other is ultimately an indifference to the other in all its manifestations. As such, this indifference is an utterly self-centred gesture.

A movement away from the other and into the self, in itself, cannot be reprimanded. There are times––times or moments or periods of time that may extend to the entirety of a life––when the self may need to withdraw into itself. The reasons for this withdrawal can be more than one. However, every time such a withdrawal is effected, the self, which is effecting this withdrawal, remains fully regardful of the other. This withdrawal is a consequence neither of indifference nor of an animosity towards the other. Most often this withdrawal gives expression to a deep desire of the self to meditate on itself, to explore itself and to become more conversant with itself, and, if possible, through this knowledge to establish a different, a renewed relation with the other and the world at large.

A movement into the self which stems from indifference and which signifies a shrinking of the soul, on the other hand, holds no promise of a renewed relation with the other. The only thing it holds forth is a breaking off of this relation, or a relation which in its most dreadful form makes use of the other.

When we break off our relation with the other out of animosity or indifference, what happens to us? In relation with that particular other, we cease to be, lose our existence. And when this breaking off is extended to the other in all its manifestations, the loss of our existence is total. When this happens, it is not that we lose our life on the earth and become dead, but henceforth we lead a life which is without a soul.

This soul is lacking too when we only make use of the other.

Why is it important to retain this soul or have it in the first place? Why not go on living without a soul?

We need to have a soul in order to understand the very need to have a soul, in order to know that the idea of a soul, the thinking about it cannot be dispensed with, that by dispensing with this idea we lose that entity within us––which we ourselves create––which gives life to this other entity called life, the life that we live and which is lived, too, by the other. Thus the soul is the very soul of our life and of the life of the other, and when we do not have it, it is as if we have lost our life, as if we have become dead.

When we die in this manner, death pervades too the life around us, the world that surrounds us, including the other. Henceforth the relation between us and the other is a relation between the dead, and therefore it is not a relation but a perversion of it, the travesty of a relation, a distortion. In this relation the entities which relate to each other have no face or figure, no form. Or it is a form which is diabolical. Both the self and the other frighten each other. Or rather there is no longer a self and an other; there is only the other and no self any more: no self that would relate to the other, only an army of the others, set upon each other, devouring each other, all pretending to be a self.

When there is no longer any self but only the other, the world is no longer a world.

In a world which is no longer a world, is no longer the world as it always should be, it is not only our thought, our thinking which is decimated but also our imagination. So that we can no longer imagine the world as a place where we live, the place where we would like to live, the place which is our home. Having lost the world that we had, we lose the ability to build another. This does not turn us into vagabonds but into creatures who, having no conception of a dwelling-place, can only lay waste the earth.

And then we lay it waste.

The earth too becomes the other, but with this difference: it refuses to conceive us as the other, and lets us lay it waste. Even in devastation, it gives us a chance to retreat, even at the point where we have nearly lost this chance.

Because of this generosity of the earth towards us; because it continues to treat us not as the other but as another self (a self that we have lost); because it keeps telling us to treat the ‘other’ not as an other but as another self––we are fortunate.

* * *

We are fortunate to know that the other is not only an other but also another self––a self that is not similar to us, not exactly the self that we are, but a self nevertheless. However, it would be truer to say that the other is not an other but only a self but a self that is different from us; that this self which is different, apart from us is like our own self, but not the same. If this is so, then there is no other but only a self out there––out of, away from us. This would mean that when we relate to (or do not relate to) a self which is not our own self, when we come in connection with it, we do not relate to an other but to another self. It would also mean that the word ‘other’ designates an entity which is not there. Or rather it designates an entity which is there but does so inaccurately. Through this designation it creates an entity which is actually not there, namely the other, and through this wholly unwarranted creation demolishes another entity which is actually there––another self. And if this is not a demolition then it is a covering over, a hiding of an entity which is much more significant to know.

Why is it significant to know this entity which is out there, away from us, and which is not an other but a self?

When we conceive this entity as an other, we too, who see ourselves as self, become an other for this entity––unless this entity is wise enough not to turn us into an other, unless it overcomes the ignorant gesture that we extend to it. By becoming an other we expose ourselves to behaviour which is accorded to the other. For, the moment we are seen as the other, the concept of the ‘other’ covers up, pushes behind a cover––behind a blind––the self that is there within us. On the other hand, when we conceive this entity as a self whose existence is as important, has as much weight as our own, we may not be treated as this entity would treat itself––for we are different from it, are not a part of its self––but we open up the possibility, the potential of being treated in a manner that does not invade our self.

We can perhaps call this entity as the ‘other self’.

But we need to emphasise that this entity that we have called the other self is a self which is other than us and not an other which is also a self. In other words, it is the selfhood of this other self which is basic, which is primary, which is the essential thing about it, and not the otherness of this self. It is true that because of this otherness of this self, it continues to be more or less distant from us, so that even when this self comes close to us, even when it touches us, it continues to maintain this distance, this gap which is there between it and us. Nevertheless, this gap is much less than the gap that there would be if the other self were only an other.

It is necessary to say this, that the other self, when it is only an other, stays at a very great distance from us. This means that when we designate as other this entity which is different and apart from us, we are the ones who create this great distance between it and us. But when we see this entity as another self, we immediately reduce this distance. And when this distance gets reduced in this manner, the other self becomes more accessible to us.

This reduction in the distance also makes it easier to approach the other self.

When we approach the other self, believing that it is a self like us, even though a self which is different, it may let us approach it. There are times, however, when it may put up a resistance to our approaching it. This may happen when it thinks that we believe it to be an other. But when we persist in approaching it, when we make repeated efforts to approach it, we are likely to wear down its resistance.

Nevertheless, this persistence may not yield the same result every time we approach the other self. Sometimes we may fail to reach this self which is not our own self. This may happen when the other self continues to treat us as an other, because it perceives itself too to be an other of us. This perception may, in turn, be a consequence of a lack of self in this entity which we have believed to be a self like us. And it would have this lack of self because it would not have yet gotten rid of the notion of the ‘other’––for it is precisely when we conceive the other self as an other to us and therefore lacking a self that we lose our own self. (When we regard the other self as only an other, we become an other to the other; then there are two others facing each other, rather than two selves). As such, we have to get rid of the notion of the ‘other’ in order to gain a self for ourselves. Gaining a self for ourselves will, in turn, enable us to give a self to what was hitherto an other.

* * *

Ultimately one would be fortunate perhaps to lose one’s self, not to have it at all.

But not to lose it in such a way that it turns into a so-called other, or what we may now call the ‘other-than-self’. Rather to lose it by transforming it into an entity which is different from the self but retains an element of its substance: an entity that, taking off from the self, goes so far away that it becomes another entity.

The self, even when it is a proper self––that is, even when it has not degraded itself and become an other-than-self––remains coloured by the colour of the world. It is an entity of the world, a worldly entity, deeply entrenched in it. It behaves in a way that an entity of the world has to behave––always in a worldly relation with other selves or things, a relation which is a relation of attachment and/or exchange. Thus it is an entity caught in a web of relations, in which it can move about but from which it cannot get out.

The new entity that we have talked about, on the other hand, is not a worldly entity, but an entity which, while it still remains in the world, remains uncoloured by it. It conducts its daily business, like the self, comes in contact with other entities, indulges in exchange with them when it has to but does not relate with them, does not strike a relation.

A self is an entity which is a part of the world; it is an element of the world and constitutes a portion of it. That is why it has a nature and a temper which are worldly. And that is why, too, it cannot get rid of this nature and temper (this character): so long as it is a part of the world, it cannot get rid of itself. In order to do that, it has to transform itself into something that is no longer worldly, is no longer an element or part of it.

The new entity––which we may call the ‘self-less one’––emerges from a self which has this desire to transform itself, which has reached the point where it no longer wants to remain a self. The self-less one, as such, is an entity which is a transformed form of the self. That is, it is not an entity which makes an appearance out of nowhere, from somewhere outside the world. Rather, it is very much an entity which emerges, takes shape from within this world, and, properly speaking, from within the self. Thus it is an entity which is a transformed form of a part of the world.

What does this tell us about the world and the self?

It tells us that the world is a kind of entity––necessarily larger than the self––which permits, in fact can lead to, a transformation of a part of itself, the part which is the self. We also learn from this that the self itself is an entity which can develop the desire to transform itself into something else; that a point may come, in the life of the self, where it gets tired of its life––life that is made of relations of attachment and exchange––and wishes to get rid of it, wishes to lose itself, by getting transformed into an entity which is no longer a self and which, given the nature of this desire of the self, can only be the self-less one.[4]

The self-less one, on the other hand, when it comes to be, does not wish to transform itself into something else, for, being a transformed form of the self, it does not have the nature and temper of the self. It is a concretisation of the desire of the self to transform itself into the self-less one and, as such, does not have that desire. Having rid the self of that desire, by helping it to transform itself into its own self, it represents an absence of that desire.

This absence makes it an entity which has a stable nature, a nature that the self does not have and keeps yearning for.

Why does the self have an unstable nature? It has this nature precisely because it is entangled in relations of attachment and exchange, which are among the central characteristics of the world. This entanglement wears down the self and leads to the desire in it to quit the world, that is, to lose itself. That is how it becomes unstable. That is how, too, it conceives the self-less one and then keeps making the attempt to become that one.

The self-less one, in other words, is a creation of the self––the self that, having conceived it, transforms itself into it.

How does the self-less one relate with the self and with the other-than-self? Or if it does not relate with them, then how does it not relate with them?

The self-less one is not so centred in itself that it becomes indifferent to a self, nor is it so attached with a self and other things that it has to relate with them. This is how it is different from both the self and the other-than-self. Nevertheless, being an entity that is still in the world––an entity that has a body and a mind; which is a living thing––it has to interact with both the other entities, namely the self and the other-than-self. However, it interacts with them in such a way that it is neither close to nor distant from them even when physically it is close to or distant from them. As such, the interaction it has with both the self and the other-than-self is not a relation and never becomes one, not even ‘a relation without relation’[5] which, in the final sense, remains a relation, becomes one.[6]

When it interacts with a self or an other-than-self, does the self-less one love or hate them? No, it does not. When it buys a thing, does it enter into bargaining? Yes, it does, if it feels that there is a need to do so, but it does so without bitterness or loathing. Does it help a self or even an other-than-self if they need its help? Yes, it helps them but without sympathy or compassion. If it is abused or attacked, how does it react? It defends itself. But in such situations it acts without hatred or abhorrence.

The self-less one is a living entity and an entity that lives in the world. Although this entity does not cling to life, it is also not interested in losing life without reason. And living in the world it continues to act in it so long as it lives.

The self-less one has a face and a figure and a shape. It can be recognised and identified. It has an identity but no self.

Does it have a soul? No, it does not, because to have a soul means to have compassion.[7] Yet it is regardful of what is not itself.

It needs to eat and drink and sleep. To walk or sit quietly if it has to.

But it does not accumulate, it does not consume in excess. It is regardful of the earth, too.

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NOTES

[1] Being exists, and it is not a metaphysics. Being cannot be seen but it is felt. To feel it, mere thinking is not enough; it has to be a thinking that includes feeling in itself or is based on it.    

[2] When we can no longer bear it, we die.

[3] Every object that comes into our life makes a unique place for itself, and when this object is lost, its place remains vacant.

[4] The nature of this desire is such that it can only lead the self to transform itself in such a way that it transcends itself rather than degrading itself.

And when an entity transcends itself, it always begins with itself, with the result that its life in transcendence remains connected, in howsoever remote a way, with its life before transcendence, with the entity that it was before transcendence.

[5] See, Maurice Blanchot.

[6] The entity which in Blanchot strikes ‘a relation without relation’ is called ‘neuter’. However, given the fact that one can neither say that neuter has a self nor say that it does not have a self, neuter is not the entity/non-entity that can have ‘a relation without relation’. What it can have is neither a relation nor a non-relation. ‘A relation without relation’ is different from that: it is still a relation.

What we see in this formulation––and this is a general problem, as well––is a problem that stems from a refusal to concede to words the meaning that they apparently have. Thus it is a problem that is brought into existence, a problem not in language but in thought, in thinking.

For instance, ‘a relation’ which is ‘without relation’ is either a relation or it is not. If it is a relation, then it cannot be without relation. Or if it is without relation, then it cannot be a relation. However, since the formulation insists on calling it a relation, therefore it ends up being a relation, though that is not the intention behind the formulation.     

[7] The soul is a thing that only a self can have, and it has it. The soul comes to an end when the self dies or loses itself by transforming itself into the self-less one, or into an other-than-self.




Written in 2004, the paper was presented at the Centre for Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 2007. Subsequently, it appeared in the online and print journal Pratilipi in 2010: for that you may go to the following link: http://pratilipi.in/2010/06/to-be-fortunate-rustam-singh/  Later it appeared in my book 'Weeping' and Other Essays on Being and Writing (Pratilipi Books, Jaipur, 2011). This book is available at www.bookspunch.com ,  www.amazon.in and www.flipkart.com

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