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Tuesday 13 May 2008

Vernetzt

The specific and often hazy discrepancy between different points of view, and the various attitudes, motives, and apparent needs these produce, is a matter of thickness. Yet one of us can't exist without this bound perception of the other.

Even alone in bed as I try to arise in the morning, I can't discount my connection to the world around me; for while alone, nevertheless belted am I into the vast collective emotional roller coaster that is being. Unfortunately, despite this relationship, very few have a reciprocal understanding of one another, and I can't claim to be any different. How many of us, after all, can say we've felt the earthquake's wake upon this week's dawn, or further, to've lost sleep over its victims? And how vague this empathy is when we have!

To waking: As a child, I'd ride a wave of adrenaline first thing in the morning getting ready to go to King's Island, never once under such circumstances floundering in bed or questioning the point of it all. Today, daybreak is rarely accompanied by the zestful promise of a day well spent, let alone the elation of a visit to the amusement park.

I saw a baby crying yesterday, for seemingly no reason of course, and could not help but try to relate this emotional outburst to how I imagine it felt, that is, how I have felt before. My latent longing for abstract identification led me, as it oft has, to imagine - in this hardly familiar counterpart whining away - a mutually unmotivated core: this shedding of tears as a moment of whimpering "Why?" More specifically, however: I have no idea why a baby cries.