You don't have to be a brain surgeon.

In Walden, Thoreau says that “no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.” The idea stuck with me, though I had to look up the actual phrase. In my mind, I had translated it to an image that I could remember – two people kissing. Even pressed face to face, two people can never be any closer to one another than two planets in neighboring galaxies. The body is that boundary. But it is only the gross boundary.

If an army sacks a church and tears it down, there is no arguing that the church has been penetrated. But the divine is still ineffable. Going into a church doesn’t give you passage into the mysteries of the universe. The church is just a building. But my body is more than a building. It is also my only point of contact with the world – it effects me by its dalliances.

If a brain surgeon shaves my hair, peels back my scalp, and pries open my skull, he can see my brain, but he can’t see me. If a psychiatrist examined me every day, he still wouldn’t know me. Even people who feel certain that they know me, only know parts. And I’m never certain that I know anyone else. It makes me a little crazy.

I think about what others say to me. I think and think. I analyze. I dissect words. Debate over the precise meaning or the hint of innuendo. I think about what they don’t say to me. If shaving, scalping, and shucking would get me closer to having the slightest clue as to the inner-workings of another person, I think that I’d do it.

“It is a wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” Charles Dickens.