Scriptophrenia
Dear Sir,
I lingered hesitantly over the paper when first I began this letter, pen quivering in my fingertips with frustration and expectancy. I do not even know who you are. How can I write a letter to someone whom, not only have I never met, but also about whom I know nothing? When you left your address with my servant and asked me to write to you, I was intrigued and somewhat interested in the idea of a random letter to someone of unknown origin. But now that I am here, writing, the purpose eludes me.
I believe introductions are unnecessary, after all, you gave no name and I am not naive enough to hand my personal details to you. Though I warrant you would have little trouble obtaining them, I am well known in these parts. So what kind of a man are you, that leaves the request for correspondence but offers no identification? Perhaps not as uncouth as your actions might suggest; certainly your hand is graceful – indeed familiar - and my servant said your clothes were well made, albeit with a look of utter discombobulation on his brow. I think perhaps you are the sort of person to whom names and numbers are unimportant. Perhaps your mind perceives people in terms of how they talk, what subjects they discuss, the language they might use. Perhaps, like Doyle's character 'Sherlock Holmes', you are able to deduce a person's very physical actions by the aesthetic minutiae which others of us either perceive subconsciously, or cannot perceive at all. I wonder then, what you might glean from my literary rambling here.
Well, that I have a grasp of the use of words seems evident and also that I am at least familiar with the work of Doyle might suggest an above average education. But then I forget, you have already called round to the house and I presume you know very well what my position is and the background I am likely to have had. But perhaps you are not so sure of the type of mind I have. Yes, I feel your actions are of one who wishes not to understand the scene in a painting, but instead the mind of the painter?
So I may have found the goals you wish to obtain, but perhaps not yet the reason behind your quest. Why do you seek to know my mind and in such a unique way too? I think it not inconceivable that one might address another in a public place by way of introduction and the ensuing conversation would likely furnish you with a more intimate and clarified sense of the man you had thus engaged. So what are the benefits of such an impersonal form of engagement as this? Perhaps, as Kant suggests, the illusion of pretext, which self-meditation can induce, is the state you wish me in. Reflective, sure of my being and my place in the being of others and yet narrowed to my own present function. This letter is my world. I think begin to understand and herein I believe you have given the first real clue to your identity and purpose. You do not wish to learn of the person I am, but rather of the author of this letter, whom I have now become. Just as to me you are not a person who has lived a life, but merely a person who has requested a letter.
So are we just the people we are at any one given time or event? Are our endless, numbered days a history of not one man, but of many men, bound in this corporeal book? Each man a story with many characters; soldiers, politicians, writers, even men who desire letters. You seek to learn the history of me as an author of writing, I wonder where you shall next move to, or which other history you desire. Perhaps you do not know, or cannot say, for the future person you may yet be makes no decisions on that which you are or were. Only the writing of history can reveal who acted and to what purpose.
Have you now learned what you wished? Can you now see that which would clarify the history of such a man? For the reading and writing of letters under the same illusionary blanket as that of Descartes is surely conducive to the same errors as he. Perhaps one can learn nothing more than 'Scribo, ergo sum'. But I make light of the situation, forgive me, I seek not to dampen the value of this exercise.
You have had my attention for some small while now and alas, I am a busy man. So, I shall leave you and finish with a note of thanks, you have given me insight and I hope that upon reading this back, the insight you will gain will further nourish you. Perhaps we two histories shall meet one day, but for now, this letter may stand as a bridge between our respective presents. I fancy that we are not so different. Our goals may yet be the same and if we have both gained knowledge through this transaction, then we have benefited both ourselves and our joint cause. And if our cause is the same, may not other things be so entwined?
Yours,
Lord Cartwright