Unlearning.
I’ve been playing with the idea that we exist, each in our unique and separate worlds. Our sense of reality - a blurry projection of our own biases and beliefs.
Our bodies relate in a common space & time ... but the experience of our interactions must filter through isolated minds.
When I step into a room, you do not actually perceive me.
You cannot perceive me - as I am, in my completeness.
I’m an infinitely complex being, striving my way through this physical existence.
The attributes that meaningfully define me - the nuances of my character, my deeply held values, creativity, integrity, kindness and grit - are fully out of your reach. Instead, you piece together a story from my clothing, my skin color, expressed gender & posture. Context clues and vocal tone may help you form a shallow sense of me.
And what if I admit to burdening you in a similar way?
You - an infinitely complex being - with vast potential in every choice, at every new moment.
For convenience I interpret you through sets of old stories, norms and labels.
I'm helpless but to draw analogies - connecting you to anything simpler, more familiar.
Have you noticed this?
About perception and its flaws?
Clarity requires active work.
Self awareness, with meaningful external exchanges.
Because my world provides its own observations.
Narratives, and subconscious triggers - which, sometimes, only I access.
From birth, my reality and sense of self are constructed through a personal, manually expanding, curious mosaic of prior assumptions, and knowledge.
In what space of possibility have I confined myself?
How stubborn is the shape of it?
And here we are in our worlds, together.
And this strange, human disconnect might be sufficient for us, for a while.
But I hope that we're doing the work.
-Billy
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