This pathetic community does not exclude the world but only the abstract world, which is to say, the world that does not exist and has put subjectivi… - Michel Henry

What is one hungry for, in this Hunger that comes to all those who are well fed, as the misfortune that none of them will escape? What is lacking to each person who sees himself as the site and source of his pleasures and powers, except the power that gave him to himself, and doing so, gave him, in experiencing himself, the possibility of experiencing the power that gave him to himself to enjoy himself and to enjoy the power that gave him the joy of self? It is absolute Life, for which all those who are “well fed” will hunger if each is satisfied with himself as the source if this satisfaction. That they are hungry for absolute Life – whether this absolute Life is the single Food that can satisfy the Hunger, especially the hunger of those who are well fed, or else the sole Water able to quench the Thirst of all those struck by the curse because they live their satisfaction and pleasure as their own doing – is stated in the uncompromising words of the one who speaks about Life as about himself and of himself as of Life: the Arch-Son, in whom Life generates and reveals itself. “I have food to eat that you know nothing about” (John 4:32); “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). This Food, finally, is the self-accomplishment of absolute Life, as is also stated: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).

From these brief preliminary indications it follows that the concept of truth is twofold, designating both what shows itself and the fact of self-showing. What shows itself is the gray sky or the equality of radii in a circle. But the fact of something showing itself has nothing to do with what shows itself, with the gray of the sky or with geometric properties, and is even totally indifferent to what shows itself. The proof of this is that a blue sky can show itself to us as well, just as geometric properties, other forms, or even the fury of peoples killing each other, the beauty of a painting, the smile of a child. The fact of self-showing is as indifferent to what shows itself as the light to what it illuminates – shining, according to Scripture, on the just as well as the unjust. But the fact of self-showing is indifferent to all that shows itself only because by its nature it differs from all that, whether it may be: clouds, geometric properties, fury, a smile. The fact of self-showing, considered in itself and as such – that is the essence of truth.

Ma chair n’est donc pas seulement le principe de la constitution de mon corps objectif, elle cache en elle sa substance invisible. Telle est l’étrange condition de cet objet que nous appelons un corps : il ne consiste nullement en ces espèces visibles auxquelles on le réduit depuis toujours ; en sa réalité précisément il est invisible. Personne n’a jamais vu un homme, mais personne n’a jamais vu non plus son corps, si du moins par « corps » on entend son corps réel.