a penny for your thoughts
October 28, 2007 by moriahjoy
I wonder what it would be like to know what each other are truly thinking…
Heaven or hell?
Would it depend upon the moment we know another’s thoughts? Could we bare to stand it? To know what another thinks of us, truly? Even those who love us the most and love us deeply? Is it a mercy we cannot see inside each other’s heads?
Oh, hell, no question. First you would want to know what level of thought you were tuning in the other – surface stuff or something deeper, right now or always thoughts. Your affections for the other would surely change – awe for how beautiful they were, or disgust for how petty. Because others are as complex as you.
You would wonder how they could know you so well, and wonder how they could be so wrong about you. And God forbid they know stuff about you – everybody knows stuff about you – that you aren’t ready or willing to admit about yourself. Some of these are things you deny for shame, others you deny because humility is supposed to be a virtue. Can you live up to what they see in you – can you live it down?
Anyway, isn’t it a divine game to learn what makes each other giggle, what makes each other growl? It may be a mercy to be blinded to each other – and ourselves – but I see it more as an invitation to the dance. Photographs of us are just our fantasies – our music develops over time. I, a stranger, hear it as I read your posts, and am moved to offer you my hand.
Oh, I hear rumors that there are instants of love in which we have this very knowing, but until that taps your shoulder or mine, let’s just enjoy the dance.
And God forbid they know stuff about you – everybody knows stuff about you – that you aren’t ready or willing to admit about yourself. Some of these are things you deny for shame, others you deny because humility is supposed to be a virtue.
I think that’s what would be most difficult.
Anyway, isn’t it a divine game to learn what makes each other giggle, what makes each other growl? It may be a mercy to be blinded to each other – and ourselves – but I see it more as an invitation to the dance.
I loved your response - it’s a crazy “game” of learning that with anyone…and I think it is a mercy to be blinded to each other, but like you, also a great adventure to get to know another.
To understand someone - to know them down to their core - might be Heaven. To just hear their thoughts would most likely be Hell.
A question I would have is if such communication were ongoing and bilateral, would we even continue to be separate egos at all?
Awesome differentiation, Jonolan!
I would think we would continue to be separate egos…knowing another’s thoughts and even understanding them down to their core wouldn’t obliterate our unique personalities and ability to make decisions, live life, etc., and it would seem that if we didn’t have free will to make those decisions, then we might cease to be separate egos…but I think we could theoretically have such ongoing, bilateral communication and not cease to exist as separate identities. Yes?
Are you so sure? If you completely understood everything core to another person’s being and they completely understood core to your being how separate would you really be? How often would “I” be supplanted by “We”?
Does understanding intimate acceptance/adapting as one’s own? What if one understood a murderer? Would one be tempted to identify with said individual? I would hope not. I think, even if we understood each other completely, down to the core of our beings, we still have souls and retain our human fingerprints, so to speak.
You don’t agree?
I think of my closest relationships – my best friend knows me inside and out – better than anyone else, and yet, she doesn’t say “we.” She can speak for me, describe how I am feeling, and in general, represent me to others, but as she does so, she says “Christy is such and such”… she knows me well enough to be able to read me (we lived together for years and are extremely close friends) but she doesn’t assume me in that knowing. So even though that would only be a small shadow of the kind of knowing we’re discussing, I’m not sure I see how we would lose our sense of identity by being able to fully understand another human being.
Actually I’m completely unsure. LOL. If I truly understood another person completely, and by that I mean an ongoing gestalt between they and I, would I still even think in individual terms? I don’t know.
Oohh, lovely use of the word “gestalt.” I had to look it up. =)