I was reading Cavafy this morning (because of Ithaka), and thought I would post a poem here, translation Dalvin/Barbanis. There are various other translations ("wise men perceive things which are about to happen...").  I like, in particular, the beautiful description of this kind of intermediate zone, just beyond the reach of the fingertips. Seems to me relevant to many questions raised here recently: literacy above and beyond the literal, the laughter provoked by perceiving a higher kind of self-referential structure in music, the distinction between immediate and inaccessible happiness... Anyway, enjoy:
   
"But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things"    
   
             Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now,
             but wise men perceive approaching things.
              ---Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7.


Men know what is happening now.
The gods know the things of the future,
the full and sole possessors of all lights.
Of the future things, wise men perceive
approaching things. Their hearing

is sometimes, during serious studies,
disturbed. The mystical clamor
of approaching events reaches them.
And they heed it with reverence. While outside
on the street, the peoples hear nothing at all.

--C. P. Cavafy