I am my difference

There is an idea, if it comes from Maurice Merleau-Ponty or from Hans-Georg Gadamer I am not sure, that simply states: unity-in-difference. The African philosophy of ubuntu for some scholars hold a similar position: even the person whom I find reprehensible still constitutes part of who I am. I am difference to the other, and in that difference, we constitute each other.

For many, difference is something that poses a threat, something that they need to get away from. For many, the idea of someone different strikes fear in their hearts. We accept difference as long as we can bend and shape it into something that we can recognise. Difference, alterity, the strange, can only be accepted if it can be understood.

Understanding is a violent concept, it allows the other to moved from their horizon, from their context - which is never easily understood - into my own that I know intimately. It is always this one-way street: the other is to be understood from where I am standing.

This is probably, to some extent, human; that which is strange and may upset my house is something we want to keep out. Security in knowing, perhaps.

But am I not wholly different for others? Am I not my difference in their eyes?

I have been thinking about this term for a while: I am my difference. To myself, I am not fully known, I am difference inherent. My own mind, always told by others as being transparent to myself, is itself not known in its entirety. I am constantly looking out for the familiar - familiar routes to walk, my favorite food - because it is the most obvious choice. There is no unexpected detour, no expectation not met. But how is this the case? How can the familiar keep me grounded in what I know? For are differences not the foundation of what makes us, us? For if we did not consist of difference, we would seamlessly blend in with out backgrounds. If we did not consist out of the differences we are, we would become unrecognisable even to ourselves.

All of the musings and writings are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.