Knowing

I have a theory that Moulin Rouge is almost, but not quite right: It isn't "The greatest thing that you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return"; but rather, "The greatest thing that you will ever learn is to know and be known in return." Of course, knowing and loving are connected.

As Fr. Schall (who I, incidentally, know and love) writes, in Idylls and Rambles in the essay, "On Conversation and Companionship" (and this follows a small quotation of Plato's in which he belittles board games): "Thus, we actualize ourselves, become what we are, through interpersonal communications in 'the order of being'. We converse with one another, our friends and companions, not for use or pleasure, but to a higher purpose: to discover and tell one another about the that which is we have learned, and to listen to being as experienced by our companions. For these too are personal I's, likewise amazed at being they did not make, who rush 'to confirm' us in its discovery, in freedom and knowing and loving, often in pus and walks that need not, like creation itself, exist at all."

We want to know others, not only to confirm our experiences, but also to confirm ourselves as the experience-ors. This is why we are drawn to people who have a gift at knowing quickly and intuitively. This is why speaking and language are such great goods--because they are part of (thought not the whole of) the process of self-revelation.