At first, I saw it as an enormous change in the man I knew, but that notion did not survive reflection. What presumption is involved in attributing change to him when all that can be said is that I had come to know something about him that I had not known before?
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I did not see him as someone who had changed, but as a man I had never known. I doubted the love I had once been so sure of and concluded that he had married me because he thought I was gullible.
You said it yourself. I always noticed them. I noticed them because I couldnât help it. Only from the inside can you know what itâs like from the inside. Understanding isnât just knowing or learning what it is but knowing what itâs like.
I couldnât latch on to a thought and then be carried by it as it moved into new territory. To do that, I think you need a narrative self inside you connecting you with experience, telling you how you fit into the subjective encounter with what youâre seeing and attaching whatever significance it might hold for you.
I am reminded of what Einstein said on the death of his friend: He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion.
Unexpected events often provoke insights that allow progress toward a solution after a period of being stuck. They allow us to reframe our stories. For John, the revelation was not that he should become a writer. It was that he could not live in two worlds and that he would have to come to terms with letting go of the old identity that was slowing him down. John had never stopped to challenge his basic assumption that he could maintain his old social and financial status while moving into a realm that would allow him greater artistic expression.