Genesis 2:18

There is no knowing what may like behind an insight or judgment that it is not good for a starter human to be alone. It may be as crass as any tired parent desiring a reliable source of distraction for a sincere but stumbling tiller breaking earth indiscriminately. Who wants to spend their time micro-managing what was supposed to take care of itself?

The outrigger of training wheels comes to mind. Aloneness needs more than help. Something alongside will bring better balance. Something oppositional will slow things enough for a second thought to arise. Some counter-weight, counterpart, will move beyond a single view, that a 3-D world might be better apprehended. [“Beside”, “opposing”, and “counterpart” are all optional translation choices.]

Wherever this something more is located—alongside, ahead, or behind—it needs to be more than an add-on that can be lost or broken. This something needs to be bone deep, something that will sustain over a long haul. This something needs to be active, not passive.

This something that will address a state of aloneness will be challenging to state once, much less translate into far distant societies, cultures, or languages. Alter phrases this something beyond aloneness as a “sustainer beside.”

Given the multiple valences available from the Hebrew and imagination, we might wonder about the need for an external companion or counterpart. Given the task to till and watch and the noted state of aloneness, does this protohuman need help or assistance with the tilling (not being done fast enough) or the watching (an engaged thoughtfulness)? If tilling, any automaton will do. If watching, an opponent and parser of words will bring a deepening of engagement or partnership with what is encountered. Here we try to distinguish between a servant and a soul-mate and an integration of a singular one.

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