Suppose we ventured outside this self-composition of life and being and there
really were an exterior, not just our own internalities reflected? What if there
really were a you outside of I, not just the impressions off my own reflection,
like those mirroring images apparent on the other side of that roaring, intensifying river
—those the travelers row through,
thought not well – just enough to meet that reflecting being amidst the waves and intensifying tides. Off to the right of those waves, that mirroring soul
belong to someone else, not you. What if, when we said I love you, there really was some
externalized soul present over yonder as there is the reflective being of that undulating tide?
To endure the endless row boating throughout the self,
knowing through a union connecting by self-ties of familiarity and knowledge (for ourselves are all we know) is philanthropic: not generosity or charity,
but coming to know humanity through those intimidating tidal of the self’s reflection,
love becomes the oar---altruism.