I don't know who you are.
Me? You've always known and always will know as much as you ever have known, and nothing more. This is the way of things - you never really knew me.
We think we know ourselves, but how much do we really know, when we constantly are surprised by the way we react, by the things we say and having to say sorry for hurting those we never meant to hurt, with words that have escaped our own lips. How can we claim to be in control, when we don't know what we will do in unknown situations, in a world full of uncertainty and no guarantees?
We think we know because we ca imagine ourselves in a myriad situations that feel like it is an accurate portrayal, even if we have never experienced them and have no proof as to what they may actually be. Like children thinking that they know what love is, or an idiot believing they can empathize with the mind of a genius.
I am an idiot.
At least, at the majority of skilled things in this world. I know this unequivocally - it has to be true. There are far more things that I don't know than I know and that is what holds true for all of us, despite how much we know, or how specialized we are. The world is never what it seems, because what it seems is an illusion that feels real. That feels familiar. That is solid. Even when we know there's no such thing as solid, for everything is moving constantly, every piece of every particle never still, always alive, but never breathing, never drinking. The miracle isn't in whether something sentient created us, it is in the fact that anything is created at all, that there is something.
It is easy to get lost in the details of our lives and feel those walls of reality closing in - but those walls are not real either right? They are like when my daughter talks about the "scary bits" in a book or movie that she might be watching, knowing full well that it is not real, but the feelings arise still. The sweaty palms created by the monster under the bed that doesn't exist.
We make monsters.
Does that make us monsters?
We protect ourselves from the monsters we create, like playing a game of chess against ourselves, where no matter how many times we win, we are always going to be a loser too. The victor and the conquered. Yin and yang. The dark and the light. Simultaneously, Alive and Dead.
Be at one with the world while living in a constant flux of duality, never able to come to a consensus on what is truly right or wrong, because we live in a world where that doesn't exist, except in our imagination. There is the possible - that is it. Nothing is impossible because the impossible cannot exist, therefore, it cannot be. There is only what can be, whether it can be now or it can be in the future doesn't matter in terms of possibility.
I don't know me, so how can you?
We can feign understanding based on our limited knowledge right at this moment, but what we know now will be replaced with what we know next and in time, what we know is going to be irrelevant, unnecessary and useless - even harmful. Going back into the past to dig into the pains that did not exist at that time is a useless activity, but it is easier than coming to terms with that no matter how right we feel today, at some point down the track we too will say "I didn't know better at the time" - it is just the way things were done - and always will be.
Look into the mirror.
Not to make a change, but to know that no matter how much that face changes, how many actions are made to improve, there is no way to be right, there is only the chance to try and be better. Whatever that means.
And that is meaning.
In a meaningless world where there is no permanence, for a short period in comparison to the universe, we have a sliver of a window to live a life that is meaningful to us, the individual. We can never please the meaningful lives of others, even though they might applaud our actions at times, but at the end of the day, we are alone on our journey, walking side by side, hand in hand, never knowing each other fully, because we are made of the unknowable, as no matter how far we dig, there is more to discover.
We'll never know.
Yet we can try.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]