I Am that I Am

Better a deceiving god than no god at all.

This is experience in a certain mind

—not any mind—but one specific mind

with a particular history like yours

or mine, but other than yours and mine

—distinct, utterly unknown to both of us,

entirely other, and yet of the same kind

as your mind, or my mind, or any other.

Here we meet who are otherwise nothing

to one another, neither brother nor friend.…

Our minds wander off.—Look! This piece of wax

has not yet lost all taste of its honey.

It retains some odor of the wild flowers

from which it has been gathered by the bee.

It is hard. It is cold. It emits a sound

when stricken. It may be any shape.

But it remains still the same piece of wax

No one denies that. And I perceive it.

It is not accidental to the mind

to be united to the body. Yet how

prone to errors my mind is. If I had

not now looked out the window and seen

a human being going by in the street,

I would not believe it emits a sound

when stricken. Yet I am. I exist. I have

a body which can act and also suffer.

As your highness is so clear-seeing, there

is no concealing anything from you.

—You are not one of those who never philosophize.

The piece of wax is moved toward the fire.

But the piece of wax remains, because

this wax is not perceived except by mind.

But my essence consists wholly in being

a thinking thing. Right now, in bed with Helene,

the natural light of reason makes known

to me what is to be known. So I say

“Helene! You are a pure spirit. You represent

truths such that they bear their evidence

on their face. As for me, I visit the butcher

to watch the slaughtering of cattle. There

I dissect the heads of the animals

to learn what imagination consists of.”

—Francine lies beside me in her box. But

whether she sleeps or wakes I don’t know.

“Francine! Here are my dreams. Pay attention,

Francine/machine. The world is light, light-rays.

Love is a theory of light which intends light.”

I know what I am for. But do I exist? 

Although nothing imagined is true,

the power of imagining is real.

Certainly I seem to see. I seem 

to hear. I seem to be warmed. To imagine 

is nothing other than to contemplate

the image of a corporeal thing.

That is what you must assure me of. What

you are for. But you do not assure me.