Can we be certain that we have already been born?
We know when our bodies came into the world.
But is that really the moment when our birth is complete?
What if being born were a much broader process—an adventure
that continued throughout our lives, as our
awareness opens, our perspective changes, and we discover
who we are?
Drawing on lived experience, encounters, intuition, and questions
pursued over decades, Jean-Pierre Hermans ex-
plores one of the simplest—and perhaps most
profound—questions there is:
What is born when we are born?
The body?
The individual?
Consciousness?
Or something within us that is still seeking to know itself?
Little by little, another truth emerges: perhaps we are never
born alone.
The other’s gaze reveals us.
Their differences transform us.
Their presence shapes who we become.
Then certain words we thought we knew take on a
new depth.
And a question arises:
Can I truly exist without the other?
This book offers neither doctrine nor certainty.
It takes a different approach: observing, questioning, distinguishing
what we know from what we assume, while remaining open to the
possibility that reality is broader than what we perceive.
For perhaps we have not finished being born.
Perhaps, until our very last day, we can learn to see
more, to understand differently, to encounter others and to encoun-
ter ourselves.
And perhaps then we will discover that, despite hardships,
losses, and paths that are sometimes difficult, one truth remains:
How fortunate we are to have been here.
Author:
Jean-Pierre Hermans
Publisher:
France Libris
