How Much Do We Understand Each Other?
PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)
Story from Bert: "I am looking at a room with forty people in it. What I am looking at is forty different planets." [ask Bert for details]
Image: little Prince, we are all on our separate planets.
connect to Brene Brown’s idea that we cannot truly empathize
Language creates an illusion of understanding. If we recognize how often language is unhelpful, we will see why this understanding is an illusion.
“we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” - same can be said about seeing other people. Solaris by Tarkovsky: Hari created by Solaris is not the real Hari, it’s the way Kris saw her. Snaut: we don’t need to conquer the universe, we need to expand earth, we need a mirror. The impossibility of communication between people and Solaris = the impossibility of people to understand each other?
According to Brene Brown, we cannot fully understand each other. And that is true if understanding is seen as some absolute (understand completely). Indeed, we cannot become each other, but is this a goal? Does understanding the other person is not really « understanding » if we cannot see the world except how they see it, feel early how they feel?
perhaps the works relate would be better? Maybe not, I can relate what you are going through sounds less empathetic than I can understand you.
Some people can say « you do not understand what I am going through, you have never had this problem » and it would be fair to respond, « yes, your experiences are entirely yours, I cannot claim that I fully understand what you are going through », but at the same time we could point out at our experiences that we went through that are somewhat similar (if not exactly the same).
Experiences can look very differently but it does not mean that their impact on our emotions cannot be similar. In fact, it may be not empathic to imply extractor that. For example, it is not the same for a child to lose a toy and for a grown up to loose a job. But would it be fair for the grown up to say to the child: do not cry about that toy, see, I lose the job and it’s much worse than loosing a got abd i am not even crying.
The other person is always behind the curtain for us. It is very easy and attractive to start painting things on this curtain to explain the other person. This also involves projecting our own thoughts and feelings on this curtain.
About this project: Start page
Image: little Prince, we are all on our separate planets.
connect to Brene Brown’s idea that we cannot truly empathize
Language creates an illusion of understanding. If we recognize how often language is unhelpful, we will see why this understanding is an illusion.
“we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” - same can be said about seeing other people. Solaris by Tarkovsky: Hari created by Solaris is not the real Hari, it’s the way Kris saw her. Snaut: we don’t need to conquer the universe, we need to expand earth, we need a mirror. The impossibility of communication between people and Solaris = the impossibility of people to understand each other?
According to Brene Brown, we cannot fully understand each other. And that is true if understanding is seen as some absolute (understand completely). Indeed, we cannot become each other, but is this a goal? Does understanding the other person is not really « understanding » if we cannot see the world except how they see it, feel early how they feel?
perhaps the works relate would be better? Maybe not, I can relate what you are going through sounds less empathetic than I can understand you.
Some people can say « you do not understand what I am going through, you have never had this problem » and it would be fair to respond, « yes, your experiences are entirely yours, I cannot claim that I fully understand what you are going through », but at the same time we could point out at our experiences that we went through that are somewhat similar (if not exactly the same).
Experiences can look very differently but it does not mean that their impact on our emotions cannot be similar. In fact, it may be not empathic to imply extractor that. For example, it is not the same for a child to lose a toy and for a grown up to loose a job. But would it be fair for the grown up to say to the child: do not cry about that toy, see, I lose the job and it’s much worse than loosing a got abd i am not even crying.
The other person is always behind the curtain for us. It is very easy and attractive to start painting things on this curtain to explain the other person. This also involves projecting our own thoughts and feelings on this curtain.
About this project: Start page
