Touchstone

Probing with a touchstone

By rubbing a metal on a touchstone a small amount of metal is ground off onto the stone, and forms a colored stripe. This is typically compared to a stripe ground from an alloy of known high-quality composition next to the sample (this is called "priming" the stone).

By extension, the metaphorical use of touchstone means any physical or intellectual measure by which the validity of a concept can be tested.

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There’s the starting point for an idea that's been banging around in my head for several weeks now. My own concept of a touchstone has always been based on the people in my life that I can go to and see if I'm out of sync with reality. These are the people that I can call up and say, "Hey, am I crazy, or does it seem like..."

There aren’t really all that many people I've come across in this life that qualify as a touchstone to me, but you're one of them. I miss our conversations when you aren't around. I have pretend conversations with you in my head sometimes when something reminds me of you, when I come across something I just know you'd have an opinion about. I'm indebted to you my friend, because of what you've done for me, because of what you mean to me, because of how you've helped me grow and evolve and discover myself. You're my touchstone, and you help me retain sanity, even when you aren't here with me, you're still here with me.

What's life without someone to share it with? What does a moment in time mean if I'm the only one that experiences it? When we connect, something divine takes place in that moment, something eternal and something more real than all the illusions of day to day life. You and I talking with each other, sharing our thoughts, looking at an object together, reciprocating an emotion, is life experiencing itself subjectively. To look another human being in the eye is to see the Divine, removed from time and space, reflected back at us. That moment is recognition of the Creator within us all.

In the Kurt Vonnegut novel, "Breakfast of Champions," Kilgore Trout walks into a bathroom and sees graffitti on the wall that reads "What is the purpose of life?" He scoffs and says (as if it should be obvious to everyone everywhere), "To be the eyes and ears and consciousness of the Creator of the universe." That's Vonnegut's genius, to pare down all the philosophy and religion of thousands of years into a single sentence that expresses it more perfectly than any of the texts and sermons and philosophical musings humanity has offered up previously.

That's us. That's us little human beings, tiny little isolated pockets of protoplasmic deities who are grasping desperately towards the other. We want to remind ourselves of that magical moment of joining another in conscious recognition of the moment, of that cooperative creation of divine connectedness.