... And when I say 'dying of love' - Qfwfq went on - I mean something you have no idea of, because you think falling in love has to signify falling in love with another person, or thing, or what have you; in other words, I'm here and I'm in love with is there, in short a relationship connected to the life of relationships, whereas I'm talking about the times before I had established any relationships between myself and anything else, there was a cell and that cell was me, and that was that. Now we needn't wonder whether there were other cells around it too, it doesn't matter, there was the cell that was me and that was already quite an achievement, such a thing is more than enough to fill one's life, and it's this very sense of fullness I want to talk to you about. [ ..] I'm talking about a sense of fullness that was, if you'll allow the expression, quote spiritual unquote, namely the awareness that this cell was me, this sense of fullness, this fullness of being aware was something that kept me awake nights, something that made me beside myself, in other words the situation I mentioned before, I was 'dying of love'.
Now I know all of you will raise a flock of objections because being in love presupposes not only self awareness but also awareness of the other, et cetera, et cetera, and all I can answer is thanks a lot I know that much myself but if you aren't going to be patient there's no use in my trying to explain [...]
Let's begin this way, then: there is a cell, and this cell is a unicellular organism, and this unicellular organism is me, and I know it, and I'm pleased about it. Nothing special so far. Now let's try to represent this situation for ourselves in space and time. Time passes, and I, more and more pleased with being in it and with being me, am also more and more pleased that there is time, and that I am in time, or rather that time passes and I pass time and time passes me, or rather I am pleased to be contained in time, to be the content of time, or the container, in short, to mark by being me the passing of time. Now you must admit this begins to arouse a sense of expectation, a happy and hopeful waiting, a happy youthful impatience, and also an anxiety, a youthful excited anxiety also basically painful, a painful unbearable tension and impatience. In addition you must keep in mind that existing also means being in space, and in fact I was dished out into space to my full width, with space all around, and even though I had no knowledge it obviously continued on all sides.
Up until now I've kept time and space separated to help you to understand me better, or rather so that I could understand better what I should make you understand, but in those days I didn't really distinguish too clearly what one of them was from what the other was: there was me, in that point and at that moment - right? - and then there was an outside which seemed to me a void I might occupy in another moment or point, in a series of other points or moments, in short a potential projection of me where, however, I wasn't present, and therefore a void which was actually the world and the future, but I didn't know that yet; it was void because perception was still denied me, and as for imagination I was even further behind, and when it came to mental categories I was a total loss, but I had this contentement because outside of me there was this void that wasn't me, which perhaps could become me because 'me' was the only world I knew, the only word I could have declined, a void that could become me, however, wasn't me at that moment and basically never would be: it was the discovery of something else that wasn't yet something but anyhow wasn't me, or rather wasn't me at that moment and in that point and therefore was something else, and this discovery aroused an exhilarating enthusiasm in me, no, a torment, a dizziying torture, the dizziness of a void which represented everything possible, the complement of that fullness that was for me all, and there I was brimming over with love for this elsewhere, this other time, this otherwise, silent and void.
So you see that when I spoke of being 'in love' I wasn't saying something so far-fetched, and you were always on the point of interrupting me to say: 'In love with yourself, um-hum, in love with yourself,' and I was wise to pay no attention and not use or let you use that expression; there, you see that being in love was even then searing passion for what was outside himself as I then went rolling around in time and space, dying of love.
Up until now I've kept time and space separated to help you to understand me better, or rather so that I could understand better what I should make you understand, but in those days I didn't really distinguish too clearly what one of them was from what the other was: there was me, in that point and at that moment - right? - and then there was an outside which seemed to me a void I might occupy in another moment or point, in a series of other points or moments, in short a potential projection of me where, however, I wasn't present, and therefore a void which was actually the world and the future, but I didn't know that yet; it was void because perception was still denied me, and as for imagination I was even further behind, and when it came to mental categories I was a total loss, but I had this contentement because outside of me there was this void that wasn't me, which perhaps could become me because 'me' was the only world I knew, the only word I could have declined, a void that could become me, however, wasn't me at that moment and basically never would be: it was the discovery of something else that wasn't yet something but anyhow wasn't me, or rather wasn't me at that moment and in that point and therefore was something else, and this discovery aroused an exhilarating enthusiasm in me, no, a torment, a dizziying torture, the dizziness of a void which represented everything possible, the complement of that fullness that was for me all, and there I was brimming over with love for this elsewhere, this other time, this otherwise, silent and void.
So you see that when I spoke of being 'in love' I wasn't saying something so far-fetched, and you were always on the point of interrupting me to say: 'In love with yourself, um-hum, in love with yourself,' and I was wise to pay no attention and not use or let you use that expression; there, you see that being in love was even then searing passion for what was outside himself as I then went rolling around in time and space, dying of love.
Mitosis, in The Complete Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino
