Y'know, I meant to write you back days ago, but... well, I live in Omaha.
I was just thinking, there was something both Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien said about perspective, that is, being in one place and not in another. Tolkien had the idea (brought up in his semi-autobiographical short story "Leaf By Niggle") that there is a kind of joy to be found in the separation between two things. That is to say, there's a certain positive quality experienced only in viewing things that are at a distance. Lewis said it in a different way in Out of the Silent Planet when he talked about the delight one gets in interacting with something that is very different from oneself, be it another gender or another species. I've felt it myself; that peculiar joy in coaxing a shy cat to leave its hiding place and come be petted. The cat is not-me, a separate intelligence and existence, but it is consenting to me and my will (to pet it) for its own pleasure.
To me, it's a fundamental joy in the balance between our individuality and our necessary relationship to one another, both materially and spiritually. Would you say it's an illusion?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-12-09 04:29 am (UTC)I was just thinking, there was something both Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien said about perspective, that is, being in one place and not in another. Tolkien had the idea (brought up in his semi-autobiographical short story "Leaf By Niggle") that there is a kind of joy to be found in the separation between two things. That is to say, there's a certain positive quality experienced only in viewing things that are at a distance. Lewis said it in a different way in Out of the Silent Planet when he talked about the delight one gets in interacting with something that is very different from oneself, be it another gender or another species. I've felt it myself; that peculiar joy in coaxing a shy cat to leave its hiding place and come be petted. The cat is not-me, a separate intelligence and existence, but it is consenting to me and my will (to pet it) for its own pleasure.
To me, it's a fundamental joy in the balance between our individuality and our necessary relationship to one another, both materially and spiritually. Would you say it's an illusion?