We are social creatures and greatly enjoy the company of each other. The greatest difficulty placed before all conscious beings, however, is that our true knowledge is limited to the perception of self: my five senses are but my own. Descartes’ (1) famous quote, “I think therefore I am,” seems oddly old fashioned in our “age of everything.” We tell ourselves that others respond in similar ways to my actions. They all have cell phones, they all are on social media, they all have Facebook accounts. Other individuals must therefore be like me, but ultimately they are not, they are unique. The fact of true individuality is not initially understood and many long-term relationships are based on the ill-though-out belief that we are all identically the same. “We are soul mates,” is a popular refrain. Sadly, a majority of marriages, for example, end in divorce. “In the United States, researchers estimate that 40%–50% of all first marriages, and 60% of second marriages, will end in divorce. There are some well known factors that put people at higher risk for divorce: marrying at a very early age, less education and income, living together before marriage, a premarital pregnancy, no religious affiliation, coming from a divorced family, and feelings of insecurity. The most common reasons people give for their divorce are lack of commitment, too much arguing, infidelity, marrying too young, unrealistic expectations, lack of equality in the relationship, lack of preparation for marriage, and abuse.” (2) We certainly see a litany of excuses. The real reason, of course, is that we are alone in our specialness. How then do I bridge this isolation into something broader and more inclusive? How do I have actual contact with a real living being? Undoubtedly, the beginning of any true perception of the world, and the people in it, commences with the question, “What do I know for sure?” The answer would have to be, “I know that this piece of life is alive!” Then I can extrapolate going forward that if you react similarly, you are also alive: I can make a “leap of faith” that your similarity must somehow “mirror” my similarity. In this quote, paraphrased from Soren Kierkegaard, (3) we could easily supplant God with Gaia or the cosmos: “Completely alone, cut off from his fellow-men, the individual realizes his own nothingness as the preliminary condition for embracing the truth of God. Only when man becomes aware of his own non-entity — an experience that is purely subjective and incommunicable — does he recover his real self and stand in the presence of God. This is the mystique which has been rediscovered by nineteenth-century man, the leap from outwardness to inwardness, from rationalism to subjectivity, the revelation that is ineffable, of the reality of the Absolute.” I believe, regardless of a person’s religious affiliation (or not), that there is something larger than my presence alone in the universe, be it as simple as history unfolding. The secret to real human relationships therefore lies in modesty and patience. If I believe that you have something of value to say and I have the forbearance to hear it, we are on a good footing to begin our relationship. I am, as the Romans were apt to say “first among equals”: meaning in this context that I will always know myself the best but that does not negate or diminish your feelings or sensitivities. I totally respect and admire other beings.
Then comes the unenviable question: What if I do not identify other entities as equal to me for religious, racist or sexist views? Then you most certainly will create conflicts in a modern, multi-cultural world. This lack of tolerance seems somewhat childish, nonetheless, in an era of the Internet and globalization. This does not mean that we have to like all ideologies, but within the scope of human dignity, we must respect them. They thus should not impose their will on us and we should not impose our will on them. Controversial author, philosopher and neuroscientist, Sam Harris, (b. 1967) leaves us with a thought: Tolerance, openness to argument, openness to self-doubt, willingness to see other people’s points of view – these are very liberal and enlightened values that people are right to hold, but we can’t allow them to delude us to the point where we can’t recognize people who are needlessly perpetrating human misery.
A closing thought: Two areas may be of interest in the coming weeks. The ongoing Brexit crisis requires some background information: https://www.brexitthemovie.com/; and the Chilton Report on Britain’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq invasion is highly critical of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/iraq-inquiry-key-points-from-the-chilcot-report
A small joke: Don and Jill Plymouth were a newly married, young couple. They loved to listen to popular music and, because they didn’t have a lot of money, they often invited friends over to their apartment, as opposed to going out. Their stereo was small and inexpensive, but it “did the job.” After a year or so they saved enough money to buy a larger and more powerful sound system. Their upstairs neighbor was an elderly lady by the name of Mrs. Brown. One day she stopped Jill in the hallway and said, “Oh I see that you have bought an excellent new stereo!” “How could you possibly know that?” the young woman inquired, thinking the old woman was a nosy busybody. “That is easy,” she replied. “This one shakes the floor, the other one didn’t.”
This week, please ponder your knowledge of other human beings.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: We must all aspire to try to understand the world of others. This will require extreme effort, but the result will be a lessening of the tensions between people: we all have a similar footprint, though unique.
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