about perception

I just wish I could express what I feel so it reaches air. So you can feel it, too. Words don’t express that much, though. And I’m not sure that anyone has ever managed to make anyone else feel what she feels. All feeling is transposed by our own experiential lens, our memory filter, our sensory makeup. Moviemakers come closest. Or is it musicians?

So here’s something I’ve always wondered: do you see the same blue I see when I use the word blue? How do we know we’re seeing the same thing? What if what looks like blue to me is really red to you, except because we use the same word, we believe we are seeing the same thing? Every time you see your blue, I see my blue so that’s ok, we’re on the same wavelength. But are we seeing the same thing? Really? And how could we tell? Because my filter will always tell me I see blue and so will yours. Even scientific instruments can’t distinguish for us, because we see their results through our own innate lenses.

And so it could be with feelings. I listen to a piece of music and want to cry. You say it makes you sad, too. And I see your tears, just as you see mine. I touch your tears, they are as warm and moist as mine. Seems like we’re having the same feeling. But I don’t know what your “sad” feels like. I only know what mine feels like. Mine feels icy and spiky sometimes, hot and deep others. And those words barely scratch the surface. Sadness feels like the end, the absolute “over” state, done, finished, nowhere to go, surrender and collapse. Sadness is relief. Sadness is unrequited. There is nothing but it. It is high and wide, long and deep, shallow and smoldering, obvious and lurking, creeping slowly into consciousness to take over as it has already overcome all unconsciousness. I am surprised by sadness. I start to cry and know that I have been sad for a while. It’s been rising like yeasted bread, shaping my mood and reactions before I’m even aware that it’s there. A little shortness here, a hesitation there. My throat catches, David flashes by, and there they come at last, the tears of release. Release, relief, grief.

Does any of that sound familiar? Does any of that resonate within your core? Can you understand how I feel by reading my words? Is your feeling of grief the same as mine? Or do we just approximate our empathy based on trust? It takes a great leap of faith to voice a feeling. To admit to feeling something to another is the most vulnerable of states. For you cannot feel my feeling, I cannot transmit it to you. It remains within me, mine, expressible only by words, movement, facial signs. I trust that you will have some knowledge of your own similar feelings, enough for you to cast yourself somewhat into that state and fish out a bit of compassion. You cannot feel my feelings, yet in re-feeling your own, you may approximate empathy. You may sense my need by recalling your own. You may give me the space and time and attention to fully feel my feelings without envying me that experience.

Maybe those who have a paucity of feeling are envious. I don’t know if there are people who lack feeling, more that there are people who lack experiences of fully feeling. I can’t stop to think of why that would be. Just know that there are those whose emotional vocabulary is small as yet.