So, Who Are You Really?

Elaine @thewebrecluse

December 17 2022 7:58am

I recently wrote about how we can never truly understand people.

Between friends and family and coworkers there are multiple versions of ourselves that exist and that doesn’t even count social media. Everyone who is aware of you, who knows you, who likes you and hates you sees you completely differently and perceives you in a reality that is specific to them. Even your own view of yourself is different from how you actually are.

So, who are you?

Given the level of impossibility to answering that question … it stands to reason that the same holds true in how we see other people and that true understanding of people is just as impossible. Reality exists for each person differently … perception is different for everyone so there are no two alike worlds in this regard. You can’t exist in someone else’s reality as a true version of yourself; only as a vague idea or as a sum of ideas that someone else believes or that you represent.

This is especially true on the modern version of social media where people literally represent themselves by only the ideals they hold and as brands to promote those ideas rather than actual, individual people. You can only come to know the billboard that represents who that person is and not that actual person … they probably only have the same PR and marketing version of themselves in their own minds as well. Who knows. You can’t truly know anyone because most don’t truly know themselves.

If 10 people hate you and only 3 people like you … which ones are wrong about you and which ones are right about you? Or all they all right about you and simply just have different levels of bias or transference towards you based on aspects of you that they themselves cannot see clearly? Their reality where you exist is different from other people’s realities where you exist. To someone you are a friend, to someone else you’re the Devil, and still to someone else you’re just simply invisible …

You don’t exist to people who aren’t even aware of you … so do you not exist? You do … just not to them. In their reality you don’t exist. You have no face, no body, no value. To others … you’re the end all be all of their life and they can’t imagine the world without you. To someone else … you’re someone who should be removed from the world and not allowed to exist. There are many versions of you and there are also no versions of you. You are also (hopefully) ever-changing and growing.

So … I repeat.

We can’t ever truly understand anyone. We only have a vague idea of who people are based on what they share of themselves and even then that is not their entire self – only the stuff they themselves are aware of – and even still … how we hear them, how we interpret them, how we view them through our own lens isn’t accurate either.

You can only listen and you can only ever do your best.

The truth is we are all strangers even sometimes to ourselves.