Sometimes it just astounds me that there are so many people in the world and they are all different. Most of the time I live my life in an isolated circle. There are people out there with different values, different priorities, and different ways of looking at the world. I know they exist, but not on a personal level. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have lived someone else’s life. To have had different types of experiences shape my life and the way I approach the world. To have different tolerances and emotions and thought processes.
It makes me feel very insignificant when I remember this. I am the king of my world. I am the person I think about the most: what I am feeling, what I am thinking, what I am doing. But when I remember that I am just one person in a world of 6 billion people, and they all think they are the kings of their own worlds, I feel very small and very lost. It’s kind of like how some people feel when they look at the stars. It all depends on the scale on which you measure things. Most of the time, my scale is small. My scale is me and my world. But sometimes my scale gets bigger and my mind just doesn’t know what to think about that.
posted by Amanda @ 8:27 AM
4 Antiphon:
I'm not sure you're exactly following what I mean. Yes, I believe everyone has a degree of empathy/understanding/concern/what-have-you, and it can be very strong. But you can't have it strong all the time, to the degree that a person is in tune with him/herself. A mother has a strong connection to her child, will do anything for that child, empathizes with it's emotions to a very strong degree. But not to the degree I'm talking about. My mother does not know some of the things I've been through and the extent to which they have shaped me. She can see how I change through the years, she is upset when I am upset, she is happy when I am happy, but she cannot know, not truly, what I feel and why I feel it. And to know everyone is that complex, well, it just amazes me.
Another way to put it...who are you *aware of* more, yourself or other people? Someone may think about other people more than themselves, but they are more aware of themselves more than other people.
So what brought on this philosphical chain of thought? "I think therefore I am." That doesnt really work in relaion to other people. "I think therefore you are?" Nope. Was that De Carte? God I hated philosophy.
It was Descartes.
And if I'd paid a wee bit more attention in African Traditional Religion, I'd be able to tell you correctly what they say- it's something like "I think therefore we are"- whole community identity thingy.
Amanda- it is mind boggling sometimes. I spend way too much time thinking about stuff sometimes, and it can get overwhelming.
Helen
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