Becoming Human

We seek our (human) selves every time we emerge from Nothingness.  Molinos

Perhaps I am a Postman. No, I think I'm a Tram.
I'm feeling rather funny and I don't know what I am.  A.A. Milne, "Now We Are Seven"

Nursery Chairs
In the Second Chair:
I'm a great big lion in my cage.

In the Fourth Chair:
Whenever I sit in a high chair
For breakfast or dinner or tea,
I try to pretend that it's my chair,
And that I'm a baby of three.  A.A. Milne

Comparing Adam and Karenin leads me to the thought that in Paradise man was not yet man. Or to be more precise, man had not yet been cast out on man's path. Now we are longtime outcasts, flying through the emptiness of time in a straight line. Yet somewhere deep down a thin thread still ties us to that far-off misty Paradise, where Adam leans over a well and, unlike Narcissus, never even suspects that the pale yellow blotch appearing in it is himself. The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.  Milan Kundera, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

A human being is commanded regarding two things: not to deceive oneself, and not to imitate one's fellow.... Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk 

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer. Adam Smith 

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