Disadvantage of Closeness

(Nadroni Listy, March 6th, 1927)

On a train ride to the mountains we can find ourselves quite suddenly in a bend from where we have a wonderful view. From this spot we can look at the mountain and see clearly and vividly the magnificent picture in its entirety, the mighty contours and the colossal stillness. We freeze with respect, love and admiration, and if we were to turn around and go home we would forever keep this memory of the magnificence of a mountain. However, the train is panting on and suddenly stops close to the bottom of the mountain. We look at the top, turn our necks, and the more we look, the less we see of the mountain. It is colossal, but we cannot see it in its entirety, we cannot see how its top is set against the sky, cannot see its shape, and we only see the few things we can see from close by.

With people it is exactly the same. We immediately comprehend a person when we see him for the first time. We see the light in his eyes and get a glimpse of his innermost feelings, we understand whether he is sad or composed, and we do not try to rationalize how much of this glimpse comes from suddenly having discovered a soul mate, how much comes from a secret reaction of our nerves, how much is simply our fantasy, that is sharpened and kept under control by life itself, or how much is purposefully wanting to see a person just like that. Nothing is veiling our view of this person. We do not fully understand him but we see him, and this is both, more and less.

The train of life is panting on, getting closer to a person and suddenly it is so close that we stop seeing this person. And we do not even notice it but we do see him differently than at our first encounter, differently but not less true. Only that we now see the close details, while before we saw the contours. A person has qualities that manifest themselves daily, and others that are easily forgotten since they manifest themselves only rarely. The most stingy and greedy person in the world might have beautiful eyes, and this quality you might notice more often than the greed. However, also the best person has his bad habits that fall more into the eyes than his kindness. As soon as we live with a person we see his daily good and bad qualities and forget about the others. We do him injustice because we are too close.

It is a strange feeling when we drive back with the same train and reach the bend again from where we saw the mountain for the first time. We look at the mountain from the same distance, but we will never see it like the first time. Either love or fear will distort the look. We already have a relationship to the mountain. It is not new. Even if we were to see it again after many years we might love it but would still never see it like the first time. It is the same with people. Sometimes we passionately wish to see the face of a beloved person like on the first day: as strange, as distant and yet strangely familiar. We see more in his face if we look into it today, and we look more happily into it, but sometimes it seems that the face is expanding, covering the whole horizon, disappearing and then only shows itself in a smile or in a single expression. It has grown strange to us and we have grown lonely from it. It know its entirety and knows that it cannot show it to us, which makes it sad. We gaze at a point that is only visible from close by, and cannot imagine the rest.

An ant under the shoe of a man has no idea how his face looks like. And we in front of the face of a person can also not know how the human heart looks like.