Thursday, March 29, 2012

On ego

Hey! Hello. This is me. Moi. C'est moi.

I'm speaking to you. You. I wish I knew you. Maybe I do. But when do we really know someone? I'm not even sure I know myself.

I analyse things. It's a professional hazard. Can't help it. "Hey! Hello. This is me. Moi. C'est moi." Why "hey"? Why add an extra "hello"? Why exclamation mark for the first, full stop for the second? And why French? I'm not French.

I analyse myself. Try to see me as others do.

Students.

Colleagues.

Friends.

Family.

Boys/men.

And within these categories, each person individually.

I fail. If we can't know someone - not even ourselves - how can we even fathom the idea of knowing what someone (that we don't know) knows anything about ourselves (that we don't know), or that we can know this something they know (or don't know) about ourselves?

Big question. No answer.

Listen to this song:




Not the lyrics. They're in Swedish, and most you don't speak Swedish. "Most of you." Whether that means most people in the world, or most people potentially reading this blog. Maybe most of you (reading this blog) do speak Swedish. I don't care. Don't listen to the lyrics. Not this time. I don't. I never do. Even if I discovered that I knew these almost by heart. But I don't pay attention to them. It's a standing joke. And also true.

Don't listen to the lyrics, whether you speak Swedish or not. Listen to the trumpet. That quiet, vulnerable, wintery tone. It's spring. Kent is winter/autumn music to me. But the wintery trumpet gives me all-year-appropriate goosebumps, every time. That trumpet says more than the lyrics I'm not listening to anyway.

The guitar is good too. As a complementary - no, as a driving force for the aforementioned trumpet.

The trumpet that says anything. And of course nothing. But at least it makes me think that "nothing" is okay. Some questions don't have answers. Some answers are too complicated for us to understand. Some questions only trigger more questions. Some answers do too. And sometimes that is okay.

I don't know you. You don't know me. I don't know me. We don't know ourselves.

The trumpet. Listen to the trumpet.

It's okay.

4 comments:

Jemi Fraser said...

The trumpet really is okay. :) I don't know if we ever really find answers to those deep questions. And I don't know that the answers really matter as much as the search itself :)

Mary Aalgaard said...

The instrumentals are powerful in this song. Also, the voice has a longing in it. It reminds me some of the soundtrack to "Once."

M.J. Nicholls said...

I don't come here very often these days. Entirely my fault. Hi. Love the trumpet.

CA Heaven said...

No one really knows me neither, fortunately >:)

Cold As Heaven

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