I Still Don’t Know Where Here Is

My husband is going to physical therapy so I ask if I can tag along as I am bored staying in. The neighborhood where the clinic is located is very densely populated but you can barely see anyone outside. That's a thing in America. People rarely linger outside. Next to the therapy center is an ice cream shop. It has a tingly name to it. Something to do with clowns. The store is not open yet but there is an elderly man inside who is setting it up. He is opening some packages, arranging stuff, hanging a T-shirt at the window front that has the name of the store. You know, the ordinary work of beginning a day. His hands are shaking probably because of age or maybe because he is sick so he is doing the work very slowly. People are already parked outside, patiently waiting for him to open the store.

I have been watching him for a while when I realize he is not aware that I am watching him. He is aware of the people outside watching him even if he does not show that he is paying attention to them. He is already performing for them, adjusting himself slightly for their presence.

Wait, that's not right. I am amongst the people he is performing for but he does not know that I specifically am watching him. I don't know why I thought myself special, that I am invisible and I am seeing something he is not offering anyone.

My first thought feels like a Eureka moment as I am seeing quantum physics in action. In particular, I think I am witnessing the observer effect, where observation changes behavior. I tell myself he is moving unguarded, that I am catching him before the performance begins.

But he already knows people are watching. The crowd outside has already changed him. Whatever I am seeing is not the unobserved version. That version is not available. I do not think it ever will be.

If that's so, is there any other kind? Maybe. But does he not still have an inner audience? Some part of him is watching himself open the shop, feeling his shaking hands, aware of the morning. He is never fully unobserved, because he is observing himself. I don't think there is a version of consciousness that exists outside of perception. Even while alone or in the dark, we witness ourselves.

If that's the case and he has an inner observer, do I not have one too? And if so, is there not another observer watching the observer and another after that? Damn, there is no bottom no matter how hard I try to get to the bottom. There is just more watching and witnessing. An infinite corridor of selves observing selves observing selves and none of them are the original, none of them are the real one, because every time I think I have found the real one there is something behind it, quieter, further back, watching it exist.

And I can't stop.

Who is watching me right now? Who is watching the one who is asking who is watching? Is there a me that exists when nobody including me is looking? Is the old man real when I look away? Am I real when I look away? What is real when it is not being witnessed by anything, not even itself? Does that state exist? Can it exist? If a thing exists with no observer anywhere, inside or outside, does it —

Anyway, people are going into the shop now.

He still does not know I am here.

I still don't know where here is.