I suppose that everyone thinks differently. Not as in their ideas, beliefs and whatnot, but in how they actually process information. Until recently I just presumed everyone processed in much the same way, unless a specific issue had been identified. I thought it was quite typical to ponder multiple things at once, but apparently, most people don’t think like this. I had a chat with a friend about this and he seemed to think that it would make my life harder, he almost had a look of pity. The thing was, to only think one thing at a time? I felt that same pity right back. I am very much attached to way that I think, and I guess everyone else is too!
There is a line, from a song in the show Matilda, which I utterly love
‘Have you ever wondered, well I have, about how when I say red, for example, there’s no way of knowing if red, means the same thing in your head, as red means in my head when someone says red?’
Interpretations, even of common, standard things can have such wide variance, that in truth, I just have to take for granted that other people interpret things, at least vaguely the same way as me. Otherwise, that would be far too many variables. In order to communicate, I think this has to be a generalised common acceptance. But at the same time, everyone does have different perspectives.
I have found this most recently with my blog. I know that people have different opinions on almost every subject on earth. But it still feels strange that people who know me can have such wide variances in how they have read my words. I find it completely amazing and sort of exciting too. Pieces that I have written that have been heart-wrenching to write have been perceived as laugh out loud funny. Similarly, things that I have written that have made me giggle, others have read as bleak and depressing. I guess we all use the mirror of our own lives to relate to new ideas. What someone else meant, what someone else understood as absolute, is utterly ready for adaptation in a new person’s mind. I think this is an exceptional thing.
Map Point. Can I ever really know what anyone else is thinking?
Shiny journey 