Opening Up the Impossible of Faith's Belief

Invading the Other’s World: “What Are You Thinking?”

http://peterrollins.net/?p=3407

by Peter Rollins

November 28, 2011

Discovering Ourselves
through God's Love

There is a question that often comes up in relationships. Indeed even when it does not it is often because the people have had to make an effort not to say it. While it might be asked at any time it is often sprung when two people are sitting quietly together on a given evening. It is, very simply, “What are you thinking?”

There are various possible feelings related to this question, both for the one asking it and the one being asked it. Depending on the dynamic between the two people the question might communicate love, suspicion, frustration or concern. It might feel like a welcome expression of desire or an unwelcome invasion into ones inner world. Indeed it might make one feel deeply frustrated: “how do I know what I am really thinking, I am as in the dark about that as you are!”

One of the things that such a question renders visible however is the way in which the other we are with is also separate from us… other to us. By asking this question we express an explicit desire to bring the others inner world into the room, to render it manifest (although this explicit desire is often a manifestation of an implicit desire – don’t tell me what you are really thinking, tell me something I would like to hear).

Such a question carries with it a certain level of anxiety. For there is always the possibility that what one hears will be something we don’t want to hear,

        “What are you thinking dear?”

        “Oh I was just thinking that I wish you would die horribly and

          leave all your money to me. Would you like a cup of tea honey?”

The anxiety might be minimal (for example if you share a deep connection with your partner), but no matter how deep the relationship the others inner world is no more yours than it is theirs and so you are always in danger of finding something you would find difficult to hear (just as they are). The others inner world is a pulsating, untamed universe that we should only approach with great caution.

This means that we rarely actually answer the question truthfully,

        “What are you thinking dear?”

        “Oh I was just thinking that I wish you would know how much I love you.

          Would you like a cup of tea honey?”

The point, which I have touched on elsewhere, is not that we lie to the other, more fundamentally we often lie to ourselves. Covering over our real desires with things we find more acceptable.

Risking the Impossible Waters of Faith's Reveal

So then “What are you thinking” is a dangerous question, very dangerous. To really ask it, or to actually attempt to answer it, both have the potential of throwing us off course, breaking current patterns and opening up new and scary trajectories.

In a Derridian sense it has the potential of opening us up to the impossible. The possible here being the direction we can predict, the well-lit road we are currently treading, the safe path that is lined with the familiar. The impossible being that which throws a spanner in the works, casting us adrift once more and placing us again onto a narrow, unlit path.