One thing we have no control over is how other people perceive their world, or how they perceive their perceptions — they see how they see, feel how they feel, think how they think, and respond based on these.
The spiritual path of life is perspective enough to see and accept that others’ perceptions can only be respected as the way they see.
We all think, feel, speak, and act out of our perceptions — occasionally reflecting, considering wisely, before, during, or after; perceiving our perceptions, moderating our behaviour — but also on occasion reacting out of those perceptions.
We all think, feel, speak, and act out of our perceptions, which are filters for life based on our lived experience, our upbringing, the culture we’re immersed in, our biological personality, and many other factors.
Of the over eight billion sets of human senses on Planet Earth, as much as our faces are unique, and as much as our senses ‘see’ and define our being, the mystery of perception is enigmatic to even ourselves.
Do any of us have any idea of what’s coming and how we’ll perceive it?
None of us do. None of us know the terrors or ecstacies that lay in wait. We would all like to think we could predict how we would react.
All these concepts of truth help us empathise with our fellow humans, for surely we empathise with ourselves.
Each of us has battles the next person knows nothing about. No matter how well they know us. For, how well do we even know ourselves? How well (or not) we’ll respond to the challenge five minutes from now.
A level of anxiety threatens ever-presently out of the constancy of the uncertainties of life. Life can be a battle for the mind.
Being kind to one another is surely the right response. Being kind because we know how tough our lives can be. Being kind as to not be unfair, even if others are unfair to us.
We are existentially all alone, cosmically separated even from ourselves in so many ways. What makes sense of all this is it’s our common lot. You read these words and have some assurance that, “this guy senses the world the same way I do.”
So we can empathise with the next person, for they have only as much control over their perceptions as we do — maybe more, maybe less.
None of us can judge but God alone for why another person responds the way they do. It’s not for us to pretend we have the market cornered on truth — all knowledge as only God does.
And it’s a gift to our sensibilities to acknowledge what little we know about life, let alone what little we know about others. To say “I withhold judgement because I don’t know the whole story” is wisdom.
This is wisdom each other person needs us to live — for their sake. And actually, by default, for our own.
