Today’s topic is about what it feels like to experience the conceptual distance that can exist among very different people. To me, it feels like a more complex experience than either joy /love or splendiferocity because it takes place on many levels at once and grows into a part of my identity over time.
The first level is the reality of the conceptual distance – the bare fact that there are people attempting to connect despite noticeable differences. The experience of this level involves the negotiation of symbolic differences where words, gestures, expression, silence, and other forms of meaning have a different significance for each person. This has always been a mildly uncomfortable process in my experience – riddled with concern and anxiety about being misunderstood by other people. I think most people are likely to relate to this.
At the second level, this mild discomfort grows into the certainty that every time I interact with someone, there will be that feeling of distance, we will be different, and it will be very difficult and uncomfortable. The new layer of certainty and anticipation adds even more anxiety and eventually dread. So great, now I dread talking to people, but I still love them, so I’m not going to stop trying to connect with them. I’m doomed.
At the third level, the certainty that every social interaction will be hard and uncomfortable becomes strongly associated with me as a person. I have arrived at the conclusion that the discomfort, distance, strangeness, and pain comes from me because it follows me wherever I go. I am the common denominator of all these uncomfortable experiences, so they must be my fault. This is the level that I think of as estrangement.
Finally, these levels of experience combine into a way of being in the world where I have convinced myself that I must be the only one living in my particular conceptual universe of meanings and no one will ever find a way to reach me there. But because this experience deserves its own post, I will talk more about the bubble of estrangement, and the time it was eventually breached, in the near future.
I think it bears mentioning, for myself as much as anyone else, that I know I am not alone in feeling this way, and it is in fact a common experience. Communication is challenging for most people, and even the most skillful among us miscommunicate at times. Meanings are negotiated in real time, which makes it an unpredictable process.
My hope for myself, and for anyone else dealing with this challenge, is that we do not give up. I think it matters that we want to connect even when we fail. I also think it is an incredibly brave and admirable thing to keep trying even when the results we get are less than ideal. So I resign myself to the chronic discomfort knowing it is the only way to find the rare person with the patience and skills to overcome that distance. Keep going friends. It is worth it.
Image prompt: two people are talking but there is a glass barrier between them, they both look confused and frustrated
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