Reciprocity

Who am I to you ? Who are we to each other ? Passing shadows, feathers of wind or breath upon the skin – half remembered or improbable, fictional narratives or memory and falling leaves or floating dust suspended in the light ? Perhaps I am little more than who you might hope that I could be. I (but not alone) am so deeply bound in who you think that I might be that I have adopted your expectations, I have absorbed them and have now become little more than a layered veil of your own dreams and wishes. I am only that life which you have given me, that which you believe me to be.

We may all in this way be little more than so much mental tapestry or binding (and blinding) of that Other’s perception and inner vision; internalised, self-conscious but utterly, irrevocably empty when considered alone, in ourselves. We live through each other or not at all.