Life, living, lively, live: these words are term commonly understood and used, but livingness?
We generally have little trouble recognizing when something is alive: it initiates and sustains action for its own reasons; it responds to what others do; it looks out for itself as a solitary or one of a group; it makes things; it adjusts, even evolves. So a good way to beginning thinking of livingness is as the continuity of this aliveness through the course of a life; in a sense, a biography of aliveness.
Considered from a birds eye perspective, livingness is observable as what happens on the frontier between what is us and what is not us. Inside, what we might call it the suitorium, after sui or self, the region of me, mine, of me, for me, by me, containing the integrated functions that maintain our existence and identity, not just physiological, but intellectual and emotional and intentional as well. Outside, the far side of the frontier: the world we are immersed in, and, of particular interest, others and othernesses, each with their own suitoria, each with a claim on existence as good as our own, each apt as we are to resist and insist. What happens at the frontier is reflective of and has impact on what happens inside and outside.
The world as home to others is what we can call our alitorium, after alia, other. We each are part of the alitorium of our others. The frontier is our interface with others but less like a fixed wall and gate boundary than a dynamic interaction zone.
And within our suitorium, we have ‘bubbles’ of inner otherness, personal to ourselves, each surrounded by its own frontier. The frontier, outward and inward looking, is in a state of flux or dynamic tension as the contours, contents and inner configurations of our suitoria evolve over time, and our alitorum presents new along with familiar others to engage with. That story of our change over time, of our plasticity and our firmness, is our livingness, the evolutionary history of our suitorum, of our selves.
But this top-down view of our livingness misses the animating appetite ever active in our suitorium, which is our persistent and eager desire, beyond bare necessity, to engage with the actual world as a plentitude of things and signs, ever productive of novelty, open-ended in possibility, multifarious in content, intricately complex in texture, full of resource and full of interest, and especially to engage with the particular others and othernesses addressable as ‘you’ in encounters.
This appetite drives the dramas of livingness this inexhaustibly interesting world presents: whether and when to be sure or doubt, where and when to trust or mistrust, where and when to pay attention or disregard.
This profound appetite, echoed for instance in the desire aroused by the inviting fragrance of a ripe pear to partake of sweetness there to be tasted, is for freshness itself, the freshness that is both promise and fulfillment of promise, the ‘freshness deep down things’ that ever renews the zest of our existence.
This appetite and the delight of its desire allows us to feel the traction our potentiality, energy and power (pep) of our suitorium has on our surroundings, and the impact that the pep of the world and its others has on us; to see our presence in our own lives; to sense all that we are, becoming.
Contacts with things and signs, even with others and othernesses, accidental or appointed, spontaneous or deliberate, occur regularly, frequently, all the time. What makes any of these engagements encounters? Encounters are those occasions where we make common cause with the livingness of an other addressed as you, even if those they are not recognized as such. The key elements in this definition are livingness, defined above, an other addressed as you, and making common cause.
What does it mean to make common cause with the livingness of an other? Making common cause means allying with an other for the sake of a common goal. What’s the goal of any encounter? It is stimulating livingness, that is helping each other to become more ready, willing and able to pursue our deepest purpose, our ultimate happiness, that is, encountering. It’s a circular argument: the goal of encounters is to inspire each other to more encountering, and it has validity only if encounters and encountering are intrinsically worthwhile.
Encounters whet the appetite in us for that primal appetite to seek out, sample and savor what the world and others offer–in terms of what is, and can be and may come, of what we are, what we can be, and what we may become, and of ourselves sought out and seen.
How does this happen? There are at least three ways. Imagine a dinner, a menu, and a fellow diner. The dinner provides a time and the place conducive to dining; the menu provides what to explore and to appreciate; the table partner is someone with whom to share food, drink, toasts and conversation; all this so that at the end of a satisfying repast, we look forward to feasting again..
First, the dinner. All encounters occur in some modality of hospitality, friendship and exploration providing the freedom and the formats for making discoveries we learn from, having experiences that affect us, building connections that link us.
Second, in encounters each of us offers to the other not just its own suitorium, but also those others it is other to, that is its alitorum. In this way, we offer a menu of resources to the others livingness. Often the encounter is an occasion of an encounter with a third other where our alitoria overlap, as when two listen to piece of music.
Finally, we companion each other, inspiring and encouraging each other, pointing out the overlooked and undervalued, searching together, finding together, waiting together.
Hunger is a need for nourishment. Appetite is a desire to seek out, sample and savor. Loss of appetite is a dire symptom. We need to encounter to fulfill our human purpose: lives of healthy appetite. To this end, we tend to our livingness.