By
Obododimma
Oha
I like myself that I see in the other person . Do I
see the other in me? Can I like the other when I see the other in me? It seems
that I am too serious about the selfness of myself and the otherness of the other. Is it
not possible that the other is other me in another skin? Does this mean that
the selfness of my selfhood has disappeared?
The other may even have a slightly different form: not
just a different design of face or a different narrative indicated by a DNA
test, but even femaleness with female sexual organs as opposed to my own
hardware – a male sexuality with a penis to cap it up. Don’t mention beard,
after all some women can spot it! But that female sexuality is mine, beyond
animus and anima confluences! That form is only an environmental dressing for
an alien.
Myself resident in the other tells me to be careful,
gentle, kind, humane, in dealing with the other. The other is not another
creature served for my meal. The other is me in another skin, another costume.
If you pinch yourself and it pains you, then you can tell that when you pinch
the other, it would pain that fellow, says the Igbo sage. That means that pinching
is not universally welcome to all creatures in this costume! My feeling should
be your feeling; you are not yet a fossil! You are human and can feel!
Differences that you narrate on the bases of religion,
ethnicity, gender, etc are mere distractions from sameness. These variables
come after sameness. Differences are different only because you imagine. But
sameness is not imagination.
OK, the expiry of this object is same as the expiry of
the other object. It is the same knife used by the unfriendly terrorist in
slaughtering the goat that is used in slaughtering the sheep. The timetable for
the slaughter does not matter. When the goat puts off its skin, the sheep puts
off its. What is important is that the
goat does not drop its skin because of goatness and the sheep because of
sheepness.
The other is me when it smiles and when it cries. The
other is not a piece of stone. The other is me hungry for knowledge as a pupil
and armed with knowledge as an expert. It is me sweating and writing that
examination and it is me winning the Nobel right from MIT! Unachievable?
Is that shithole emptiness not mine? Is that hi-tech orientation not also mine? Does the difference not tell me that differences in
this world indicate that it is here and also there? This civilization is lost
in paradoxes and one is not surprised that it has nights and days. When can it
have an eternal dawn?
This is about selfness and otherness; so, let us not
forget. Its nights and its days are but an evening gone out there. Its night is
only the other side of day. Does that not mean that the little bird that takes
off from a low branch to another low one is not near the ground and the chaser
can catch it?
Yes; the other slumbers in me! Wake up the other and
see that one is not alone. The other is with the self. The other complements
the self. The other strengthens the self.
Didn’t voice it out about the selfness of the other?
That says that selfishness is an aberration. Selfishness is ignorance and
suggests an unwillingness to be complete, to be fulfilled with the other.
When the self is with the other or knows the other,
it is fulfilled. The self has to keep searching for its other when it is
absent. It needs completeness.
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