round about page 243...

I pretty much popped in and out of the Wake group last night, August being an awfully busy month for me, so rather than posting something lengthy, I'll just say that I was struck by Tom's take on Shem. He said that Shem's stance was always one of mediated reality--mediated by words, that is--rather than that of the man of action, represented by Shaun. As if in affirmation, Campbell writes that Shem, an outcast from the guess the colors game, which he fails at, threatened to write a jeremiad against them.

I can certainly relate to the Shem position, because I think I tend to come at things a bit obliquely, describing my experience of something by relating it to some other thing.

But in reality aren't we all by necessity Shaun as well? We must have the unmediated reality before we can have the mediated one. Maybe a Shaun accepts reality in its unmediated form more easily, while a Shem has to describe it to himself or others before he knows it is real...