being misunderstood

... is the experience of being human.

Dec 14, 2023

I’m quite the dreamer - like literally. The second my mind and body fully melt into the bed each night, I simultaneously am thrusted into Dream Land. It’s a whimsical, unpredictable place of infinite doors, yet my subconscious mind always chooses to enter a dream that is vivid to the touch, often traversing mind-bending plot lines with wildly existential metaphors.

And because my anxiety or my bladder that needs a break after chugging half a gallon of water before bed each night, I notoriously wake up between the wee early hours of 2 to 3 AM like clockwork daily.

And on many of these such nights, that means I, as a writer and a self-appointed modern day philosopher, have the golden opportunity to scribble down any real-time thoughts my dream self was thinking about in my dream.

I opened my Notes app today to land on this initially obscure piece of a gem scribbled from a random night from last week.

My favorite part of this snippet is me ending the note saying “good night” to myself.

A close second favorite is recognizing how particular yet profound this sentiment is - as non-contextual as these few sentences are, they are very real.

Each of us live our lives everyday, largely occupied by our own thoughts stemming from our experiences. A snowball effect that never stops, our perspective shifts and grows with us as we maneuver this life on our own. Regardless of the number of people that surround you or if you have someone you’re simultaneously living your life with (say, family or a partner), you are still experiencing your life on your own.

You are a culmination of everything that happened to you. Your perspective is your reality.

And so, even if you are aware of your flaws, sins, or vices, you are also able to justify your actions with your intentions - almost always.

Hypothetically speaking, if you were the only person on this planet, you would always be right. And most importantly, you would always be understood - by yourself.

But in reality, that is not the case.

As much as our lives are lived independently, they are also lived in conjunction with each other. But when my perspective is my reality, and your perspective is your reality, and our perspectives were not built in the same ways, we are bound to clash - inevitably.

Let’s start with a population size of two.

Take you and your partner. Your soulmate, even. As much as there may be all the chemistry and compatibility in the world, there may still be some things you just don’t fully understand about them, things you wish they could do with ease to make you happier yet seem so impossible for them, or things you just argue about.

In a healthy relationship between two people, we often find our own ways of conflict resolution, and help each other grow.

There’s also the other word that embodies a lot more fear for millennials and gen Z than it should but it really shouldn’t - “compromise”.

In a healthy, mature relationship between two people, you realize that your perspectives and realities are different, yet recognize that there may just be some needs larger than others, and some desires larger than your own comfort. You re-adjust your own perspective and do some things differently than you would’ve otherwise, to brighten someone else’s reality.

Let’s move to a population size of four, the size of the average nuclear family.

There is more variance now - two different generations and two different upbringings fully shaping two absolutely different perspectives at the very root level of values and principles. Because the differences stem from a foundational base, there is more susceptibility to being and feeling misunderstood - on both ends.

It takes a safe space and atmosphere for these differences to be acknowledged and for different, clashing perspectives to be met with empathy.

If we really took the time to imagine each others lives in context, perhaps we’d understand why we make the decisions we do better. And it’s not just a one-way-street. Four gets more complicated because it takes the emotional maturity of four people to do the same intentional practice.

But when it’s done… I’d imagine you would be virtually unbreakable as a family unit.

Now grow the size of these populations.

Increase the emotional distance between each member of the population. The larger the group, the less likely you’ll have a deep, emotional bond with each member of the group.

The stakes inevitably decrease. If a member or sub-groups within the group hold a perspective different from your own and consequentially perceive a different reality, the need to find the energy and empathy to understand why their perspective is framed in the way that it did is diminished. Especially if we can find someone or a different sub-group who share a similar perspective and reality to us. It’s how echo chambers are born, and how we increasingly see less people with differing opinions conversing with each other but rather attacking each other.

It’s when we start to believe our perspective is our reality and it is the only reality. And that any other perspective or reality is an inherently wrong one.

This is not to say that some perspectives and realities may be misinformed. They could be terribly done so through years of how stories are told and passed, contextual histories, and propaganda.

And in these times, our refusal to listen and relay with empathy, especially when it is on behalf of people who are unable to and rely on our acts to evoke change in perspective, is only going to have more failing consequence.

It’s about believing that the majority of humans are not inherently evil. Our perspectives are informed in vastly different ways through a plethora of influences from the moment we enter this world. To attack a perspective without patience to not only explain your perspective but to also listen to theirs, is to attack a fragment of their existence.

I don’t have the answers for how we can do this at a large scale without feeling exhausted or defeated. What I do feel though is already a sense of defeat as I see us listening less and arguing more. How do we overcome this if at all?

Sweet Nothings

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