Sole Mate

[Hawkman]

Are we all just creatures
of our own imagining,
our reflections,
unrecognised in another’s eyes?
We gaze, bewildered
at our own complexity,
and seek the one
who sees us as we would be seen.

Out of six billion, more or less,
to find the one is quite a test.
Might as well just stay at home
Or bang your head upon a stone.

[Delta40]

you narrow the chances down in stark terms in the second stanza Hawk. Is 'sole' an intentional misspelling (I thought it would be about feet!) or do you mean sole as in alone rather than soul mate?

[YesNo]

We gaze, bewildered
at our own complexity,
and seek the one
who sees us as we would be seen.

Perhaps the solution is to try to see others as they would be seen.

[Hawkman]

Delta: Sole mate is a pun on only as you guessed and yes, 1 in six billion is long odds by any standards! :D

Y/N: personally, I doubt if that would help :D Illusion is illusion whichever way you look at it.

Thank you both for reading and commenting.

H

[AuntShecky]

The word play in the title is effective.

Do you think, dear Hawkman, that among half (the distaff
half) of the six billions populating this world there
is one --and only one-- mate perfectly suited for each male? "It would be pretty to think so," to quote Lady Brett Ashley in a slightly different context, but realistically might be an over-romanticized notion. I believe you acknowledged this with the ironic closing of your poem.

In a roundabout way, your posting reminds me of an excellent poem by Miller Williams, "After a Brubeck Concert."

[deryk]

I liked the last stanza. Something tells me that if the odds were one in six billion, there would be no anecdotal evidence in existence. I think the odds are more like one in a few thousand. And the "soul" is, in fact, duplicitous as you hint at in the first stanza (but didn't quite explicate as much as I was hoping for). So your title does it justice.

[everyadventure]

An interesting thought.

Although, I have to say it is terribly disconcerting to FIND that person, who reads your every thought and interprets every nuance... who knows EXACTLY what it means when you tilt your head just so... How tiresome it becomes to be constantly exposed!

[Hawkman]

Hi Auntie, I think that by the tenets of the piece's logic the inverse would also apply :D I rather enjoyed ea's realistic appreciation of the conceit - lol.

deryk: Hi, and thanks for reading. I'm not sure how you come to your conclusion vis anecdotal evidence - Why should there not be? Just because the odds are 1 in six billion, doesn't mean they don't live next door :D Sorry you were disappointed by the vagaries of S1 - even if you liked the title... lol

Thanks again to all for reading and commenting.

Live and be well - H

[deryk]

deryk: Hi, and thanks for reading. I'm not sure how you come to your conclusion vis anecdotal evidence - Why should there not be? Just because the odds are 1 in six billion, doesn't mean they don't live next door :D Sorry you were disappointed by the vagaries of S1 - even if you liked the title... lol



Well, I'm assuming that no one will ever meet 6 billion people in their lives. So the odds would effectively be zero. People claim to have found that "sole" person. I suppose it's all fabrication then. That was the occasion of the poem, correct- to egg on the "believers"? If that's the case, well done. If not, I should probably stop thinking about the author's intentions. :Angel_anim:

[Delta40]

I'm confident I have a better chance at winning Lotto...

[MorpheusSandman]

The opening strikes me as a bit more solipsistic than the rest of the piece, but I think the end of S1 and all of S2 really drives home the real theme. I think there perhaps needs to be some kind of bridge between the "sole" imagining of the self and others existing to recognize that self. What I do love are the assonant, almost-half-rhymed couplets of S2. They formally and phonetically suggest the theme you're expressing, that it would be nearly impossible to find "one" perfect match (less ALMOST rhymes with test, home ALMOST rhymes with stone).

Personally, I've always found the idea of a soulmate one of the more ludicrous romantic notions. It's basically an example of selection bias ala "this is all I've experienced and you're the best of the lot so you must be the best of all the lot I haven't experienced too".

[Hawkman]

deryk: ultimately, I guess, it's all about delusion... You've got to laugh though!

Delta: might as well spend your buck and buy a ticket - you never know :D

Morpheus: To suggest that the poem is solipsistic has a certain merit, but if solipsism determines that the world only exists as we perceive it, why is it that it so often fails to live up to our expectations? Are we, as a species, so flawed that we are incapable of accepting perfection? This, incidentally, was implied in "The Matrix" when agent Smith was interrogating (er) Morpheus. Smith said that the machines had created a perfect world for humans to inhabit and the humans had rejected it!

Our perception of ourselves is seldom mirrored in the eyes of others who perceive us, but that doesn't mean that others perceive us any more correctly than we perceive ourselves. The human brain's predilection for detecting patterns ultimately forces us all to fit eachother into stereotypes according to our preconceptions. Data which does not fit the theory is often rejected.

Anyway, you seem to have enjoyed the poem, so thanks for that and for the chat :D

Live and be well - H

[blazeofglory]

Are we all just creatures
of our own imagining,
our reflections,
unrecognised in another’s eyes?
We gaze, bewildered
at our own complexity,
and seek the one
who sees us as we would be seen.

Out of six billion, more or less,
to find the one is quite a test.
Might as well just stay at home
Or bang your head upon a stone.

This sounds a good read and has a little air of philosophy. But the fact is the world's population has exceeded the figure you have enumerated. We all of course are perplexed at what we see or when we see the complexity, that is man. It has a reflective tone.

[AuntShecky]

I forgot to say that the night before I read your poem I saw a documentary on HBO about a big-time show biz promoter(slash) producer who had been married to the same woman for decades, yet maintains a second relationship with another gal. The funny thing is both women are fine with it!

We keep reading research reports that the cherished middle-class value of romance (mythologized through the aforementioned Hollywood movies, not the least of which is further ingrained by the "lived happily ever after" meme via Disney) may be contrary to human--especially male-- nature, the members of the avian communities who "mate for life" withstanding. From a Darwinian standpoint, monogamy works well for females but not for males; the females require stability and consistency for the welfare of their young whereas the males sorta, kinda like to "spread the wealth around," if you catch my drift.

Atop of that, human life spans are becoming steadily longer, so the idea (ideal) of remaining faithful to just one other person for decade after decade seems to be getting obsolete, at least from a de facto viewpoint. The skyrocketing divorce rate especially in Western countries underscores this.

It's possible, for one man to be simultaneously in love with more than one woman--or so I've been told.

For the record, I don't necessarily subscribe to or like any of these observations--

but I still like your poem!

[Hawkman]

Hi Blaze, Although I'm aware that the six billion figure is a little shy of the actual population's tally I didn't think it that important in the context of the poem. the tone is indeed reflective, but also humerous.

Hi Auntie, well, wealth does seem to be a deciding factor in relationships :D It's amazing how attractive money makes one, and how unattractive one becomes when one doesn't have any :D

Live long and prosper - H

[_Shannon_]

We gaze, bewildered
at our own complexity,
and seek the one
who sees us as we would be seen.


I love that part^, and your conclusion breaks my heart. LOL maybe there's not THE one, but a one. Maybe? I gotta hold out hope

[hoope]

Avery lovely poem , Hawk !
Its really so true and at the same time i was like " They r really Billion, its a large number to find ur soulmate from " Minor chances and ....

Thanks alot for posting this poem .. wasn't in the site for while and good to be around to read this lines .

[MorpheusSandman]

To suggest that the poem is solipsistic has a certain merit, but if solipsism determines that the world only exists as we perceive it, why is it that it so often fails to live up to our expectations? Are we, as a species, so flawed that we are incapable of accepting perfection? This, incidentally, was implied in "The Matrix" when agent Smith was interrogating (er) Morpheus. Smith said that the machines had created a perfect world for humans to inhabit and the humans had rejected it!

Our perception of ourselves is seldom mirrored in the eyes of others who perceive us, but that doesn't mean that others perceive us any more correctly than we perceive ourselves. The human brain's predilection for detecting patterns ultimately forces us all to fit eachother into stereotypes according to our preconceptions. Data which does not fit the theory is often rejected.I'm no philosophy major, but, IIRC, solipsism basically state that only an individual's mind can be sure to exist and any knowledge about anything external to that is unjustified. I've always found it to be the height of philosophic sophistry, and attempt to essentially give up on attempting to understand reality. Your opening question seems to suggest this, but, then again, when you begin talking about finding the one who sees you as you want to be seen, then it seems to escape the solipsistic bent.

That said, I'm not entirely sure what your questions are asking, whether they're rhetorical or genuine. Solipsism fails precisely because our internal distortions of reality are disappointed and unfulfilled by reality. We can't make the external world go a different way just because of how we see it. Now, we may can say that how we see it determines our reactions to it, and may even end up helping to change it if we follow and act on that vision, but that's not the same as saying that nothing but my own mind exist, or that I can't claim to know anything about anything external to it. Even The Matrix suggests this: reality is that which you can't change/overcome simply by thinking about it. If you "free your mind" you can manipulate The Matrix, but you can't manipulate reality in the same way. The external world doesn't yield to how we perceive it. As for that "perfection", I don't think the human mind is after perfection, per say, but a reality that suits their idea of perfection, and even a perfect knowledge of how the world really works. It's the conflict between the former and the latter that you now see between religion and science.

I'm more inclined to agree with your second paragraph, and it reminds me strongly of my favorite work of visual fiction, Neon Genesis Evangelion. The series' ending, the last two episodes, finds the characters examining their perceptions of themselves, others, their perception of how others perceive them, and how they perceive the world around them, as well as how this has worked to develop their psyches and all of their psychological problems and destructive actions. It actually deals with these themes throughout its entirely, but in more allegorical and indirect ways, while the ending tackles it directly. It's as rich and complex an exploration on all the aspects of that theme as I've ever seen in any artform.

[Hawkman]

Shannon: Thanks for enjoying the poem and your concern for the narrator's emotional well being :D

hoope: Hi, nice to see you back. Glad you enjoyed it so much!

Morpheus: I guess Descartes has a lot to answer for :D Perhaps I twisted the nature of solipsism a little in my reply. One may begin with the certainty of one's own existence, but rather than say, "the world only exisists in my imagination," I would argue that, "The world only exists as/when I perceive it." The link between perception and imagination is necessarily a grey area. I feel I didn't quite say what I intended vis. the power of the imagination. My intention was to pose the question, "Why can't we imagine a perfect world?" The answer is, of course, as has been argued by others more qualified than myself, that Solipsism is, in fact, a pathological condition :D

I am not a solipsist, in any shape or form, I'm glad to say, and and as you rightly point out, my poem diverges from such thinking in it's acknowledgement that at least one other person is real and capable of seeing the narrator as he would wish to be seen.

All of which is a hell of a lot of thinking inspired by a very small poem :D

Live long and prosper - H

[MorpheusSandman]

While this is more my musings than something rooted in anything actually philosophical (ie, "I don't know if other philosophers have actually argued it," and insofar as one is a "natural philosopher", as Touchstone said to Corin in As You Like It), I've always figured that we would be aware of reality before we would be aware of our perception of reality. Well, technically, reality as presented in our minds would be indistinguishable from actual reality. The conscious minds' ability to sense its own perception as something separate from, even if influenced by, external reality would come much later. But if there is no external reality, then what is this thing I'm perceiving and how did it get into my mind and why can't I change it by merely thinking?

Anyway, I'd say it's a good sign when a piece of poetry can spark such a philosophical tangent, but much of this is coming from my recent readings of Yudkowsky's Less Wrong blog and, especially, his Sequence on Words (http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/) and how our mind reacts to them and how confusions and problems arise. It's been quite an enlightening journey, one which I'm still pondering on, but it definitely has me thinking about these kinds of things!