It's Probably For The Best

I believe that, for the most part, life is a lonesome experience. We emerge from our mothers as solitary beings. We are handed to our mothers who look into our newborn eyes and believe they can see into our soul. Then the truth becomes apparent - we cry, and our mothers fail to understand what it is we need so desperately. "Why are you crying?" a mother will ask her child who has not yet learned to speak. No matter how deeply she looks into her baby's eyes, she cannot see the answer there. She can only guess ... a good mother will continue to guess and guess and guess.... The baby is a solitary being. She lives within her head and learns who she is, and as she grows she learns that no one, not one person will ever really know her.

It seems to me that life is an endless search for that one person who will truly know us. Someone who will pull up a chair beside us as we sit inside our own head, looking out through our eyes. Seated there beside us, this person will have access to all the filed information we have gathered since the day of our birth. All the details that make us who we are, that cause us to react in ways that baffle those around us because they don't know what came before. This person will be able to say "Ah! I know why you feel this way! The reason is right here in your memories from when you were six!" Every once in a while we find someone who seems to be on the same page. We find a kindred spirit, and believe we can see into their soul, and they into ours. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime - the lifetime of one player in the partnership, after which the other is left to live on alone. The survivor goes on believing they were truly understood by the other, their *Self* was made known. Perhaps that is true, but only to a point. There is always a part of us that remains unknown. We are all solitary.

No one can know me as well as I know myself. Others will only know what I choose to show them. Sometimes I think I've explained myself in minute detail, only to discover that my words were misunderstood. It may be a lack of ability to articulate what is on my mind, or perhaps my words, though well expressed, are blocked by impressions carried by the other. Others may watch me as I live my life, and believe they see things in my body language, or in the lines between the lines. They may well be on to something, but it's just a likely they have misinterpreted everything. No one can really know why I do what I do, because my actions are coloured by my life experience ... and no one knows my life experience as well as I do. This is the plight of all of us. We are all solitary.

I think it isn't such a bad thing. A little mystery can be nice. I think if it was possible for one to truly enter another person's head, the detail they might find there would cause more harm than lack of understanding ever did. Maybe the quest to make ourselves understood, helps make life more interesting. Perhaps, if we were each to find one person able to enter our head and know us completely, we would resent them for knowing too much.