It all started out with me posting this on social media
Between what I think, what I want to say, what I believe I am saying, what I say, what you want to hear, what you hear, what you believe you understand, what you want to understand and what you understood, there are at least nine possibilities for misunderstanding. – Francois Garagnon
This quote reminded me of a quote by Cooley
I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.
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Then someone suggested that I read RD Laing’s “The politics of experience” which states
I see you, and you see me. I experience you, and you experience me. I see your behaviour. You see my behaviour. But I do not and never have and never will see your experience of me. Just as you cannot “see” my experience of you. My experience of you is not “inside” me. It is simply you, as I experience you. And I do not experience you as inside me. Similarly, I take it that you do not experience me as inside you.
This brings me to ponder a few things.
How do I experience me?
What is my understanding of me?
What is me?
If my beliefs about myself are viewed through my experience of myself which is based on my behaviors then what? Or are they based on your behavior?
What if my beliefs and experience of self are based on the flawed presumption of me seeing me through what I believe you think I am?
If my understanding of self is seated in the belief that I am what I think you think I am then what is my experience of me?
It would seem that my experience of myself is flawed because I am creating the experience of self, based on what I believe you think I am.
Is it that my experience of self is simply what you reflect back to me filtered by your experience of both me and you which is then filtered by my own experience which is then muddled with the myriad misunderstandings of what I think I am and what you think you are and vice versa?
Anyway, that’s enough rambling for today and I ended up with way more questions than answers. As it should be.