Here's another example in play: "After a heated debate, 2,500 scientists and astronomers voted at the International Astronomers Union General Assembly that Pluto, which has been called a planet since being discovered in 1930, would be put into a category of planets called "dwarf planets".
A world whose being is known is composed solely of necessities. Always, when we say of something that 'it is thus' or 'is so', 'is this' or 'is that other way,' we have abandoned the thing as it first appeared before us and have substituted a thought of our own, an interpretation . . .Interesitng icorrigible individualist!The earth is here beneath my feet or under the foundations of the building in which I find myself. It has, in my life, a primary role which is to uphold and sustain me. But suddenly it shakes, moves from side to side, ceases to be firm and to sustain me. It is then that I make a question of it. . . Now it is . . . a question, a problem. I ask myself, 'What is the earth?'
Earlier we were resting on the earth, sustaining ourselves on it; but when it becomes that which fails to uphold us, we do not know what to do with the earth, what to look for in regard to it. And we do not know the latter because we do not know the former. so that becomes a question for us. Fundamentally, the question is one of our behavior toward it, our conduct, what we do with the earth . . . .
If the earth shakes, ceasing to uphold us, thereby denying us its habitual service, we ask ourselves, 'What is the earth?' When the sun suddenly, and in full daylight, refuses its habitual illumination so favorable to men, the latter ask, 'What is the sun?'
The same thing happens with my body. When it is sick, it is opposed to me and does not serve me. Ipso facto, it remains foreign to me, and does not serve me. Thus, man, as he lives, discovers the basic duality of his life; he feels that he is amid something other than himself, in a foreign country, dépaysé.
After asking himself, he asks other men; . . . finding out 'what is said' about it. The subject of this saying is what we called 'people'; the social environment, the collective personage, without individuality, which is no definite person and is, therefore, irresponsible. . . .
There is a great lack of congruence between the question and the reply. The question, 'What is the earth?', I have thought and have felt in all its moving and inevitable anguish; but the reply, 'the earth is a planet' or something similar, this I neither thought nor rethought, but with this reply I repeat what 'is said,' and with this repetition I enter into and become part of 'the people,' which is nobody. I, then, turn into nobody, which is what Ulysses, punning with his name, did when he wanted to hide or to disappear.