We MUST not study ourselves while having an experience or does our condition entail that we DON'T or CAN'T study ourselves during experincing?

I loved watching the film called Stardust(2007) where the narration starts with a philosopher's quote,(probably Thales) and ends with '...and they lived happily ever after'.

The quotation is about star gazing and man (are we human because we gaze at the star or do we gaze at the star because we are human?) and the movie is about star gazing at man. Incidentally, and surprisingly, it boils down to another quotation of another philosopher Neitzsche ' We love live not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.'
That is what the Fallen Star Yvaine, (who fell because she was hit by a ruby necklace which was significant for the heirs of Stormhold to claim the thrown) says that sustains her gazing at earth from the skies.

'I know a lot about love', says a star, a fallen star. 'I have seen it. Seen centuries and centuries of it. It is the only thing that made watching over (your) the world bearable. All those walls...of pains, lies, hate. They made me want to turn away and never look down again. But to the way mankind loves.' 'You can search the furthest reaches of the world and never find anything more beautiful', vouches the star.

Love is what makes life worth living.

Another thought in the movie brings what Micheal de Montaigne had to say regarding one star gazing philosopher in his essay Apology for Raymond Sebond, on knowledge and man. I quote:

" I feel grateful to the Miselian wench who, seeing the philosopher Thales continually spending his time in contemplation of the heavenly vault and always keeping his eyes raised upward, put something in his way to make him stumble, to warn him that it would be time to amuse his thoughts with things in the clouds when he had seen to those at his feet. Indeed she gave him good counsel to rather look at himself than to the sky. For as Democritus says at the mouth of Cicero, 'No one looks underfoot but at the stars.' " But," and this is the key thought of Montaigne here, in this context and in every context, that " our condition makes the knowledge of what we have in our hands as remote from us and as far above the clouds as that of the stars.' Ironically, in the movie, a youth named Trisan promises to gift the fallen star to a girl named Vivian on her birthday for exchange of her hand in marriage, overlooking the possibility that his true love was shining in front of him, the fallen star. Yvaine resists initially and remarks sarcastically (when Tristan has told her that he intends to make her a present to Victoria) "But of course! Nothing says "romance" like a kidnapped injured woman!" Of course the happily ever after demands other than killing the evil witch Lamia who wished to tear out Yvaine 's heart out and eat it for everlasting beauty. So Trisan finally realises that, and tells Yvaine that their captain friend, captain Shake Spear(Robert De Nero) had whispered in his years that 'Your true love is right in front of you' and that the captain was right. Now philosophers are not that lucky. And so continues Montaigne ' As Socrates says in Plato, whoever meddles in philosophy may have the same reproach made to him as that woman makes to Thales, that he sees nothing of what is in front of him. For every philosopher is ignorant of what his neighbour is doing, yes, and of what he himself is doing, and does not know what they both are, whether beasts or men.'
....'We see indeed that the finger moves, that the foot moves; that some parts stir of themselves without our leave, and that others we move by our command; that a certain apprehension engenders a blush, a certain other pallor. Our imagination acts only on the spleen, another on the brain, one makes us laugh, another weep. Another paralyzes and stuns all our senses, and arrests the movements of our limbs. At one object, the stomach rises, at another a certain path lowers down.

But how a spiritual impression can cut such a swath in a massive and solid object, and the nature of the relation and connection between these wonderful springs of action, no man has ever known(but feels still). All these things are indeterminate by reason, and concealed in the majesty of nature, says Pliny; and Saint Augustine: the way in which soul clings to bodies is completely wonderful, and cannot be understood by man, and this is man himself. And yet we never doubt this......

....the reason why we doubt anything hardly is that we never test our common impressions. We never probe the base, where the faults and weakness lies, we dispute only about the branches. We do not ask whether this is true but whether it has been understood this way or that.
....It is very easy to build on accepted foundations what you please, for according to the law and ordering of this beginning, the rest of the parts of the beginning are easily done, without contradictions. By this path we find our reasons well founded and argue with great ease.'

Perhaps thats where we are wrong, to reason everything....the way in which soul clings to bodies is completely wonderful, and cannot be understood by man. This is where sophia stops and philo begins! This is where the philosopher sees the stone, probably even picks it up and keeps it in his pocket, and moves on star gazing. He looks at the Starry heavens above and the moral law within and gets back to business!!

The hope then is to continue to love live and to see it, welcome it and accept it, and not search for it in the skies when the star which gazed back at human confesses to see the way mankind loves, is all that made the star NOT 'wanting to turn away and never look down again'.



"Rule The World"

You light, the skies up above me
A star, so bright you blind me
Don't close your eyes
Don't fade away
Don't fade away

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world
Yeah you and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

If walls break down, I will comfort you
If angels cry, oh I'll be there for you
You've saved my soul
Don't leave me now
Don't leave me now

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world
Yeah you and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you
For you
All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you
For you,

Yeah you and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me girl, we can rule the world
Yeah you and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side, we can rule the world.

All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you
For you
All the stars are coming out tonight
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For you
For you