August 22
Colour, sound, warmth — where are they when no one perceives them? Much of what you suppose to be firmly out there has its place in the perceiving mind. To be, here, means: to be perceived.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Colour, sound, warmth — where are they when no one perceives them? Much of what you suppose to be firmly out there has its place in the perceiving mind. To be, here, means: to be perceived.
With some people you are funnier than usual. You don't try; the ideas simply come as soon as this one person is listening. With others you wouldn't have had the same thought, or it would strike you as silly before you even said it.
Where is this side of you when the two of you haven't seen each other for a long time? You could say it belongs to your character and is only waiting. But on your own you can hardly call it up. It seems to come into being only when someone listens in a particular way, already half ready to laugh.
That is a little unsettling. Part of what you take to be your qualities evidently lies between you and others. At the same time, it explains why some partings weigh more heavily than the time spent together would suggest. When a person disappears from your everyday life, a way of being you goes too, one that only ever occurred in their presence.
Sometimes, years later, you meet someone who listens in a similar way. Then the old tone is suddenly there. You hadn't known it still existed.
