“The Names – II” / A Memorable Fancy #266

[“Could one then do without names?” – Wittgenstein]

Alfred abandons his name. He asks his friends not to call him “Alfred” anymore, not to call him anything. Names, he thinks, say both too little about him and too much. Why do people think they know him when they know only his name?

“‘One,’ I shall be called,” he announces one day, as in “One knows very well that…,” or “One can fly from Zurich to Budapest now.” One has wisdom and power, he thinks, as in “upon reflection, One can readily see that….” One can be many things. One is not a wretched clown like that stupid “Alfred.”