The Other (Levinas Reflections)

My mind tells me that I am in the subway drowning in the sea of people, bodies, humans faintly referred to as ‘the rush-hour.’ Each one of them staring either onto the floor or into some distance not daring to look another into the eye, or if such a slip-up occurs, apologetically moving their glance someplace safe. There is a person next to me - a woman in her late 50s, simply dressed, looking concerned and tired, her eyes focused onto something that doesn’t seem to exist for me. For me, her glance is empty; I don’t understand it; I can’t understand it; I can’t see what she sees. For her it is probably full of thought and memory and the attempt to see meaning in her actions or even someone else’s actions. There is a real thirst in me to know this woman and to know that glance and an understanding that I may never be the same at the end of this journey.

This metaphysical desire - empty in its own intentionality, the attempt of transcendence onto the world of the other and this infinite relation between what seem to be two simple and finite existents is very troubling to me. This woman is standing beside me. I can see her, I can even touch her; however, I don’t understand her. I cannot place myself into her shoes and take her spot in this universe. She has her own world, and this world is not part of mine. My intentionality towards her is empty, and yet in this reach for understanding I attempt to go beyond my world. As infinite as this approach is, it deepens my understanding of the other but I cannot satisfy my image of what she ‘could be on her inside’ with what she actually is, it is an aimless and inordinate reach. I cannot dedistance her; she will always be outside of my world. There is no adequation, an infinity existing within my totality.

How do I know what she is thinking? How do I know that I am free of her judgment, or at least in good standing in her judgment? How do I know that I am safe? How do I know that she is even considering my existence? I don’t. This relationship is a one way street. I am aware only of my cognitive movement towards her, asymmetric movement – without an end. This almost existential worrying about what this Other has, this Unknown is filling me up with fear causing me to judge my own value by assuming a face of the other, because the best I can do is assume, trying to prevent possibly unbearable consequences.

She looked at me, or maybe it wasn’t me – maybe it is her traveling empty glance stopping on the pathway of my eyes, or maybe she is concerned. Am I bothering her? Could she think that my world is not worthy of existence beside hers? I murmur a quiet ‘Hello.’

My entire interiority opens up in a kind of an altruistic exposure with the word presented as a gift excused with the understanding that I am addressing an entire world beyond myself while completely representing mine. I now stand on trial in defense of my world in hers.