Seite 53 [53]
"He (Narcissus) has to make a choice without having all the know¬
ledge. He does not know the direction or source of the sound, he
does not know the music that the sounding melody of the sound
creates in him, he sees the story, the background behind many small
events on which his existence is built. (...) He must choose. But what
between? And what makes your choice justified at all?” (Pseudo 2012.
Chapter. The Artist)
The “other,” the different is at first glance indefinable. It is the mass,
the formless, the unknown, often the rejected. It is the unwanted,
sometimes the hated. It is who and what is “different.” How are
others different? In any way. In color, smell, hair, eyes, shape,
because they are either leaner or heavier: either state is supremely
unbearable because it is not normal, right? When I encounter the
other’s culture—which in some respects seems more “uncultured,”
such as their language, which I do not understand and seems like
strange jabbering, and no stranger can understand me, even though
I talk to them loudly, slowly, practically going syllable by syllable,
saying, “dooo yoooouuu understand?”—they look at me like I’m
from Mars. The “other” causes confusion. Who are they at all? At
the same time, it is completely foolish to imagine this distinction
as only between “residents” or “non-residents”, “those who speak
the same language” or “those who speak different languages.”
That is because difference appears even in the selfsame. For those
with a minimal sensitivity in a philosophical sense, the “other”
is there even among those who live here, even among those who
speak one language
Odysseus, when he arrives in the land of the Phaeacians, is
warmly received by the king’s daughter, snowy-armed Nausicaa.
He is the other, the stranger. The servants, in contrast to their
mistress, are terrified of him. The brave and crafty Odysseus—the
“other”—appears naked in front of the princess and her no less
beautiful servants, who are washing clothes in the creek. They are
clean. The “other” is dirty, smelly, not even dressed, and he comes
from the sea, which is to say he comes from afar. And whoever