Getting Another Person

Whoever likes questions left unanswered and explanations left hanging, we should definitely have a quick chat over cake and tea. I need your help.

There comes a [very rare] moment when you will just decide to stop figuring things out and asking why. And it will get you weak. For a while, you will think to yourself how poor a being you humans are, with all your limitations - those caused by virtue of your being human, and those you cause among yourselves. The latter type is more frustrating. It comes in the form of miscommunication, lack of consideration, or simply the inability to give a damn.

What's separating you from the information you want is this imaginary line that's just too broken it can't bridge the gap between what you demand and what the other person can supply. It's when it's hard to get your point across, when you're deliberately deprived of an explanation, or when the one you're talking to is indifferent to your dire need of that piece of information. Surely there'll be attempts to fix that line. You can clearly repeat what has been said, or even force an answer out, but the thing with limitation is that you are placed in a situation wherein your ways of dealing with it are themselves limited. The line is essentially broken. The least you can do is to minimize the spaces in between, but you won't be able to remove the discontinuity.

There will never be a smooth transfer or sharing of ideas between two minds. A falsifying instance may be proposed: an understanding between two people. Some would say that this understanding is validated in cases when people come to an agreement, but we can never fully "get" where Person B is entirely coming from, can we? We only get hold of the idea at surface level, but never the underlying presuppositions which caused the other person to arrive at his idea which you seemingly agree to. Apparently, the line remains as it is. Broken.

And one more thing. It's imaginary. The line does not exist. I can never make you understand what I have just written the way I would want you to receive my thoughts. We will never come from the same perspective, because no two people have exactly the same experiences. You don't have the experiences Person B has, so no matter how you think you both get each other, you in actuality don't. What's keeping us believing that we understand one another is our assumption that we indeed have reached an understanding. I'll assume you understood me, and from there we move on. :)

Acknowledgement of the fact that there are may information another person possesses which we can never know of is definitely a downer. However, one has to realize that sources are everywhere. If the source is solely one person, though, and impossibility of acquiring it is becoming clear, let it go. This is when you'll decide to stop figuring things out and asking why. Some things will never be made known to you. Acceptance of this will help you move even just a little bit forward. Eventually, you would come across plenty of a-little-bits, and after some time, without even noticing it, you'd have gone way far from where you are standing now.

But then again, these are easier said (or written) than done.