2.20
But how can things call to us? How can worlds call to us?
These questions come from an erroneous point of view fostered by Western culture, from a standpoint wherein supposedly only what has a voice can call, voices are sounds that carry meaning, and only humans have voices. While we think some non-human animal sounds carry some (emotive) meaning, elevated above these are human voices—language—that carry full emotive and intellectual meaning.
What I wish to draw to our attention is that our attention can be drawn to something only because it’s amenable to being noticed; when we turn to pay attention to anything we do so because our attention has been called to it. We direct our attention towards something because it stands out for us, which means that it stands forth for us.
If I scan the room absent-mindedly, certain things grab my attention in certain ways; I’m drawn to certain encounters. If I cultivate a meticulous sense of attention to detail, so that, next time, I scan the room and patiently take in as much as I can, still only certain things grab my attention. Opening to things is a response to being called. Even if as humans we’re structurally ‘predisposed’ to certain types of experience, we’re fundamentally a receptivity to things. Receptivity means we don’t determine which things appear to us or how. – A tree in bloom suddenly grabs our attention.
‘How can things call us in such specific ways?’ Us and things lean towards one another. This is how we can encounter them; we couldn’t encounter things if they were fully withdrawn into themselves. Things aren’t constituted as identities that subsequently call; things continuously reach out and maintain themselves in the face of others. Opening to others is a readiness for impact and to be impacted, to encounter and be encountered. Other things make things how they are: how they open and respond to interactions and impacts with others. Things are as they are through relations with others. They are an ‘internal’ relating—the parts to the whole—and an ‘external’ relating—to other things. Things face outwards. In this way, things are responses as well as questions.
Things call to us because of our relations with them; things call to us because of how they fit in and stand out amidst and relative to other things. We notice things because of this differentiation. But things stand out in relation to us, so we must take ourselves into consideration.
We likewise call on things, for we are precisely this calling and being called. We aren’t a pre-constituted identity that only subsequently calls and gets called; we’re being constituted only because we’re called and calling: we’re constituted relationally, by and as openness (§2.13). We’ve already responded before any response can be formulated. Our self is an ongoing negotiation: it’s a calling amongst various voices, held together by their calling together. Memories, habits, perceptions, unconscious desires — all these, and more, interrelate and relate to others: this is what we call our self. As new factors are brought into play, depending on how deeply they cut, they change who we are. We’re enticed, teased, seduced by worlds and things to come forth and respond.
What this means is that things stand out because of mutual interrelations. We’re always engaged in projects and activities that throw us into particular dispositions. We always come to things with our particular character and style. We always come to things carrying other things: e.g., our memories or unconscious desires. And we always encounter things as humans within a particular world. All of these show that we’re a relational nexus.
Things are also relational nexuses. In encountering them, new nexuses are formed.
Thus, things stand out for us because of the ongoing processes involved in who we are, but also because of the processes involved in who or what they are. Things call to us because we’re open to them, but openness would still be waiting if things didn’t stand out. Likewise, things are open for how we stand out and approach them. What we bring to things (habits, character, etc.) doesn’t dictate what we notice: it only pre-disposes us to ways of relating. In coming to our attention, particular things align or cut across pre-dispositions.
We notice particular things because of how we are, because of how they are, and because of how we are together. Things call to each other because they are, fundamentally, opening to and leaning toward each other.