21 votes

Does anyone really know you?

7 comments

  1. [3]
    JakeTheDog
    (edited )
    Link
    I really enjoyed that article, but I think this part should have been emphasized a lot more: I’d argue that those closest to you may actually know you better than you. Our “life story“ is...
    • Exemplary

    I really enjoyed that article, but I think this part should have been emphasized a lot more:

    Do we really know what we’re like? An outside view of you that seems strange might not be wrong; it might be right, in fact, because it’s an outside view.

    I’d argue that those closest to you may actually know you better than you.

    Like the main character in the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” you may find that the passage of time has rendered you unknowable: your life story is so long that people wonder who you are and where you’ve come from.

    Our “life story“ is ultimately a narrative that we tell ourselves, such that we are the protagonist of our story as we tell it. Memories are highly fallible. We can forget or misremember or completely make up (even unintentionally) life events.

    Viewership is basically passive; if passively acquiring knowledge about someone counts as really knowing them, then Google really knows you.

    I would flip this around and bring in the heuristics of “actions speak louder than words” and “past behaviour predictions future actions”. Google, social media, and now too AI chatbot and other data collection corporations get to see a side of you that you wouldn’t normally want to express to the world and may even actively suppress—hence the anxiety and jokes about viewing one’s browser history.

    Ultimately I don’t think any of this matters. Not only do we lack an omnipresent perspective, but “who we are” is not static. A person is not so much an ‘it’, but rather a ‘being’. A verb, not a noun. Even if you were to be known, by yourself or others, you’ve become a different being in the next moment—either day to day or in the wake of a chaotic situation. Are you the same person, before, during, and after witnessing a horrific accident? The birth of a child?

    I think the futility of being “truly” known by others is what gives a lot of people anxiety and can cause people to behave poorly. It’s the mechanism of insecurity. We want others to think we’re smart, funny, strong, pretty etc. Often to degrees that are untrue and unwarranted. But I don’t think the pursuit of being known is a good thing, and is perhaps unhealthy.

    All that is to say: I’ve found relief in being content not knowing exactly who I am, in observing the reflections of myself in others, in realizing that my decisions today shape my actions tomorrow, and in letting go of any ideals of who I ought to be.

    In case anyone is curious, Alan Watts has shaped much of my thinking here. And I’m forever grateful for it, as it seriously relieved much of my anxiety in this domain as I experienced it in my youth and early 20’s.

    16 votes
    1. [2]
      R3qn65
      Link Parent
      Very interesting perspective. I don’t disagree at all. To add another dimension, I do think that there are certain parts of us that remain pretty static. Guiding values, core principles, that sort...

      Very interesting perspective. I don’t disagree at all. To add another dimension, I do think that there are certain parts of us that remain pretty static. Guiding values, core principles, that sort of thing. Obviously it’s not impossible for those to change, but it’s much less common. Fortunately, I also think that it’s easier for people to know you by those core principles, if that makes sense. If you asked those close to me what the top, say, ten most important things to me were, I think most of them would get most of the list.

      2 votes
      1. JakeTheDog
        Link Parent
        For sure. I should have also acknowledged the genetic predisposition that we have to certain perspectives and behaviors. They're more or less immutable and likely shape our identity. I suppose the...

        For sure. I should have also acknowledged the genetic predisposition that we have to certain perspectives and behaviors. They're more or less immutable and likely shape our identity. I suppose the polygenecity and complexity of it further obscure a concrete answer to who we are, though.

  2. TreeFiddyFiddy
    Link
    A short essay on the inability for anyone to ever really know you and how, despite being surrounded by familiar faces, we can sometimes feel so utterly unknown. The author arrives at a poignant...

    A short essay on the inability for anyone to ever really know you and how, despite being surrounded by familiar faces, we can sometimes feel so utterly unknown. The author arrives at a poignant question when he posits that perhaps being known by another isn't so much an act of being discovered by them so much as a mutual act of synthesis: by revealing yourself and letting yourself be discovered you simultaneous reveal and create who you really are.

    5 votes
  3. post_below
    Link
    Whether, or how much, we can know and be known is perennially interesting. I think the author, maybe out of expedience, left out deeper ideas of what it means to know a person. I would define it...

    Whether, or how much, we can know and be known is perennially interesting.

    I think the author, maybe out of expedience, left out deeper ideas of what it means to know a person. I would define it as the degree to which you understand what it feels like to be them. The combination of knowledge and empathy.

    Of course it's impossible to completely know someone. Psychology and neuroscience teach us that. The internal experience is widely varied, from autism spectrum to synesthesia to aphantasia. Even basic sensory processing varies dramatically and that's before you consider the impact of memories, trauma, identity, delusion and everything else we filter the world through.

    It's a minor miracle we can relate to each other at all. And then at the same time we're all more than 99% genetically identical.

    One of the things I think is interesting about the question is that it goes to the fundamental loneliness of existence. We can be seen, but never completely. As Hunter S Thompson put it:

    “We are all alone, born alone, die alone . . . and we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way”

    Which, I think, is why one of the most consistently recurring themes in our stories and value systems is that connections (love, family, friends, community) are among the most important things. It's the antidote to the separate nature of being an organism with a sophisticated forebrain and imperfect communication options.

    Which is why the most meaningful gift we can give is the genuine attempt at really seeing someone.

    5 votes
  4. Baeocystin
    Link
    I can name a few folks who I trust enough to know me that if I needed someone to make life-and-death level decisions based off of what I think, I could ask them to do so in my wake with complete...

    I can name a few folks who I trust enough to know me that if I needed someone to make life-and-death level decisions based off of what I think, I could ask them to do so in my wake with complete confidence that they'd do right by our shared morality. That's enough, and I am grateful for it. I am now old enough to know myself, the good and the bad, and accept my nature for what it is. Honestly, deep self-knowledge is one of the greatest (potential) gifts of aging; it makes one so much more at peace with so many things.

    5 votes