Who or what is an Other?

Who or what is an Other? Capitalized as such it seems to have a special ontological status. That which is not me; in short, you, and you, and that over there which I don't seem to have any ultimate say about. In the Unforgiven, the Clint Eastwood character notes, “It's a hell of a thing killing a man...You take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have.” But even the exercise of that kind of power may not be the final word on an Other. We may, for instance, find ourselves haunted by what we thought we'd extirpated.

Then there's my foot, an appendage that has been baffling me for a couple of months now, and quite noticeably so this last week. That terminal structure on my right leg has had aches and twinges that have sometimes hobbled me for no obvious reason and at no permanent location. I get out of bed to a throbbing on the inside, or a soreness on the upper arch, or perhaps a warm pain on the outside of the foot, or twinges in the heel. I can and do respond and the pains go away but what was going on? Even if I have an explanation: too much of this, too little of that, the autonomous function of that foot in the context of my whole body persists. We can see this even more clearly when we try to eat after novocaine, or when we try to walk on a leg that's 'asleep'. Suddenly, what was ours to do with as we chose refuses to cooperate and demands to be attended to.  

That attention, that recognition and acknowledgment, and the way we address the suddenly un-invisible and unbiddable, and   of concord we, often impatiently, look forward to represents the richness of our encounter with an Other that's a rebel body part. Richness in encounters isn't always positive as, say, richness in soups but it's what makes encounters meaningful, as I believe they ultimately are.

So, foot, whatever new fanfare of pangs you are rehearsing even now to make me feel ridiculous tomorrow as I hirple down the street to get the bus, I promise to continue the negotiations. We can work it out.