"Sometimes"

One night in 7th or 8th grade I slept over at one of my best friend's houses, out on the couches in her downstairs living room.  To this day, if left to our own devices, we can talk for so long that my throat ends up hurting.  This night was no different, and we were up absurdly late, continually announcing that we really should go to sleep, only to keep talking for another two hours.

Somehow in our late night ramblings, we stumbled onto the idea that the color I see as red from my eyes, might not look at all like the color she sees.  In fact, her sky might be magenta, and her grass bright yellow- but because somehow people have decided to call grass green, we assume we are seeing the same colors. We will never be able to discover if we really see the same shades or not, because we can never step outside of our own experience and see into someone else's.

Sister Hazel describes this conundrum of incomplete communication, the frustration of never quite being able to construe our accurate experience:

Well I'm stuck within the mortal framework
Of having to use words
And I ... - I've never been one -
I've never been one for incompleteness

In my undergraduate study of psychology, one professor proclaimed that our ability to communicate is what sets humans apart.  We are experts at seeking contact and connection. And yet as Sister Hazel points out, words have finite power.  Just as I will never know if my red is the same as my friend's red, I cannot know if I am truly understanding another's story or viewpoint.

So much of my own journey is about trying to get inside others' experiences as deeply as possible.  Therapeutic empathy is all about being able to really walk in someone else's shoes and see through their eyes.  Even writing a blog is an attempt to express my own life, my own thoughts, as clearly as I possibly can.  Yet within the mortal framework of language, I really never know if my point has been understood.  I may be describing red, while everyone around me is seeing blue.