We are separated from and related to one another physically. Persons as embodied beings related to each other through the medium of space. And we are separated and joined by our differing perspectives, educations, backgrounds, organizations, group loyalties, affiliations, ideologies, socioeconomic class interests, temperaments. These social “things” that unite us are by the same token so many *things*, so many social figments that come between us. But if we could strip away all the exigencies and contingencies, and reveal to each other our naked presence? If you take away everything, all the clothes, the disguises, the crutches, the grease paint, also the common projects, the games that provide the pretexts for the occasions that masquerade as meetings – if we could meet, if there were such a happening, a happy coincidence of human beings, what would now separate us?
-R.D. Laing
