Don's Blog Reflection

In college I wrote my thesis on "The Problem of the Artist in the Works of James Joyce and Thomas Mann". I was what was called and English-German Bridge student with half of my departmental courses in each of the English and German Departments. Recently I came upon some notes I had written for the thesis.

In Joyce's Ulysses in the section called Night Town,  the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, muses:

"He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience was regressively accompanied by
a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations.

As in what ways?

From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received; existence with existence he was with any as any with any; 
from existence to non-existence gone he would be by all as none perceived."

Bloom was reflecting about the question addressed in my thesis. As we become deeply involved in any field at some point the "I" that we are can disappear. In the depth of our focus  the 'I'  that we are is out of time and space. We are only in the 'zone' of what we are doing.This does not happen for long and we become aware of it only downstream after the activity when the 'I' returns  and we think about it. Going from 'existence to non-existence', from knowable life to not-knowable life cannot be put into words and as an unsayable event it is thus not possible to communicate to 'others'.  There are no words for this since it is beyond perception and as  Joyce puts it "he would be by all as none perceived."  This can definitely affect one's interindividual relations.

What do you think?