Openings: Acknowledging Essential Moments in Human Communication

2. The Daily Habit of Being Open

25 —2— The Daily Habit of Being Open Let us recall the words of Albert Camus: “Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place . . . a privileged moment.”1 The type of thinking Camus refers to here is consciousness engaged in the experience of, for whatever reason, having to take a second look at its familiar surroundings whereby something or other is showing itself in an eye-catching way. The specific disclosure gives us pause for thought, a new opening for taking in the truth of what is the case. The moment at hand, for example, is one where a person to whom we are already open and whom we think we know well demonstrates a new dimension of his or her character, thereby changing the typical way that we think about the person: “Whoa, did you see the way Jane stood up for herself when talking to her boyfriend? I didn’t know she had it in her. Awesome! Go Jane!” Against the backdrop of everyday existence, with its many routines and habits, its commonplace modes of thinking and acting and of thereby being open to our environments in specific ways, Jane, in a moment of irritability, reveals herself to be more than we thought her to be. We now think about Jane differently, more openly and completely. A privileged moment is at hand: a 26 • Openings perfected presence, something that is now more open to us than it was perhaps just a moment ago stands before us. This presence , however, can be fully understood and appreciated only in the historical context of preconditions and preconceptions that define our everyday existence and its worlds of know-how: those domains of traditions, customs, rules, norms, and routines that inform the common and “normal” ways we perceive, think about, and act in our daily lives. We are creatures of habit, at home in everyday worlds of know-how, one of which has changed a bit with our new way of understanding and appreciating who Jane actually is. This change, however, is unlikely to affect how the overall world of know-how will continue working at its usual pace and in its usual ways of opening us to our environments. For example: Despite our new perception of Jane, our typical day still begins, say, at 6 a.m. A radio alarm clock automatically turns on. We wake, listen, and remain mostly still. A song is playing or people are talking, chattering about some topic or perhaps reporting the news. It doesn’t really matter, for unless there is something special about the day that is on our minds and immediately affects our outlook, the sound of the radio marks only the start of another day in our lives—a day that will most likely be controlled by the well-rehearsed habits and routines that help us to be the purposive and pragmatic creatures that we are and that inform and are informed by everyday worlds of know-how. Startled by the alarm, we know how to move our hands with little effort to the place where the radio sits near the bed and where one of its buttons, when pushed, turns it off. We wake and act not merely in the openness of physical space but also in the openness of a room designed to be a user-friendly environment . Such an environment is more commonly thought of as a place (the bedroom) than as an opening, but still, an opening it is. An opening takes place; a place is nothing if it is not a type of opening where things can happen. A place is a species of opening that, recall, first happened with the Word, a big bang, or perhaps both of these most primordial events, these truly grand openings of space and time. The everyday worlds of know-how provide an abundance of openings—habitats or environmental settings—for living in The Daily Habit of Being Open • 27 accordance with societal norms, standards, and well-designed plans. We set the radio to turn on automatically at 6 a.m. so that we have enough time to get ready for work and not be late. We wake in a ready-made environment filled with familiar objects that can be handled in familiar and normal ways. The more automatic the process, the better it is. The constructed habitat...