And once again folks it’s time for Ashe’s Sunday rant. Whaddya know, It’s actually up on Sunday this time. This week I think I’ll discuss social interaction, living and experience (points).
The human being is a social creature; an animal defined by interaction and social placement if you will. A lot of folks wonder if this is particularly related to upbringing in society or if it is an inherent factor, which, of course, brings up the whole nature vs. nurture psych thing. But that’s not really what I’m getting into tonight. Tonight it’s connections, interactions and secrets.
Let’s face it, the human being is a social creature. It’s not really arguable. I mean, even if you’re stranded somewhere for years eventually you just start talking to yourself and that part of yourself takes on conflicting personality traits. We need social interaction, we need to feel that we are a part of something. Whether it’s a group of friends, a working community or society as a whole, there’s something in each of us that longs to verify our own existence through the presence of others. But therein lies the secrets contradiction.
People hide things. All our lives we do it. There seems an equal need to possess secrets. Whether these are memories, regrets or dark aspects of our personality they seem to equally verify our existence; they often make us feel that connection with ourselves. To share a secret (not a little playground secret, a true one) is something that can be dangerous and liberating all at once. Take PostSecret for instance (postsecret.blogspot.com) – these folks send in postcards with a secret they’ve never told anyone anonymously and bear it for the world to see. There’s something about sharing a secret that’s so deep you can never let it go. Secrets have power, terrible power sometimes. They’re things that create the mystery of who we are as people. Most of these are often the result of our lives interacting with others. Thing is, it’s the combination of interaction, sharing, and keeping things to oneself that creates a person in a thousand different ways. You never really know anyone. Hell, most people don’t even know themselves that well.
Consider for instance, me, Christopher Ashe, owner of Broken Doll Studios, designer of Seven13 and the Cycle of Existence. A lot of people who read this have talked to me, interacted with me, and therefore I exist in their mind in some way. But none of you really know me. Some of you know my name, but I have a few of those, some of you even know me very well. But in the end the version of me that you know is a concoction of your own perception, created by the interactions we’ve had and the opinions you’ve formed of me and who I am. But most importantly, in your mind, I am a version of you. This is an interesting point to make.
As we move through life, we may learn things, maybe even many things. We will meet people here and there. But all of these things can be based only on what we know about ourselves, because that is the way we relate to others. We can only compare our feelings on a subject to try and understand the feelings of another. We can only compare our opinions and ideas to try and understand those of society or the world around us. This is often why people are closed-minded. They simply don’t have much to go on and aren’t interested in learning further, so they can only go off of what they know. Open-minded to me doesn’t mean more intelligent or even particularly more open, it means more objective. I’m a really open-minded person. The reason for this is I take what I know about myself when examining others as a small piece of information rather than the full basis. I use it to relate rather than to define. There’s the kicker – define. People often define things by the way they see things. More often than not this is the case in interaction. A person doesn’t really know they do it; they simply do. This is the main reason that people often utter the phrase “you think you know a guy” or “I had no idea she was capable of doing that”. In point of fact, you likely did. You simply didn’t want to go that far, too look past the things you yourself would do or how you want a person to be. Here’s a good quote for you:
“I don’t exist when you don’t see me
I don’t exist when you’re not here
What the eye don’t see won’t break the heart
You can make believe when we’re apart
But when you leave I disappear”
– The Sisters of Mercy, When You Don’t See Me
Hell of a line from a good song. Inevitably, we will never really know the people we interact with. Everyone has secrets, and a person can only go with what they know. I was married for 4 1/2 years and I realized after it all fell apart that my wife really didn’t know me that well. It’s quite possible that my current girlfriend of around 9 months knows more about me already. It’s really difficult to know yourself. It’s true, I’m not making that up. In some way we all hate ourselves and we’re all capable of just as much negative as we are positive. Looking into those dark places can be the most difficult trial a person will face. But the great game of interaction, friends and relationships is not to know the person. Face it, you never will. The great game is trying to put as many of those fragments of perception together that you can. And to do that, you have to put your pieces together as well, even the jagged, broken ones.
From Denton, TX 19 March 2006
– Ashe
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