We're stupid. Very muchly stupid, actually.

If I were to tell you about my day, you would not understand, even if you said you did. You will never, ever truly understand what happened. I can descibe, in detail, my entire day, but you won’t understand me because you cannot see, feel, or hear what happened. All we have is words, and words are not enough. It’s amazing, the power of speech, though. We can tell each other what we like, how we like it, and when. But they cannot truly know what we’re meaning or feeling.

Are we stupid? Will we someday have the ability (with or without a special technology) to actually LIVE each others days in a matter of a three-minute conversation? Will this be helpful? Will it not be helpful?

Can't even tell myself

I don't know if I have nearly enough time or intelligence to figure out why I feel the way I do about certain things. Why I want some things, why I avoid others. Why I both want and avoid the same thing sometimes. What I love and why I love it. My capabilities, my limitations. My direction, my drive.

What hope do I have to explain to someone else so perfectly so that they can experience me, when I don't have it figured out myself?

Still though, I find a bit of comfort in the inability to have someone else "LIVE" my days in a 3 minute conversation. Perhaps efficient speech is useful in pressing matters, but not all. I truly love speech, written and spoken. Plus, the inability to fully get another person oddly helps you get them MORE. The more time you spend with a person you like, the more you butt heads on certain issues, and try to wrap your mind around others, and also just enjoy others still; the more you evolve as people in a similar direction. Getting to know new people is a great source of fun to me. Getting to know more of those closest in my heart is the ultimate form of being content--content and more at the same time. I don't want it to happen easy and move on to the next person.
66% Voted for by Weydon, mudgod, BlakDeath015, maconthefarlane.
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- BlakDeath015
  February 21, 2007
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  I totally agree. Inefficient speech stems from inefficient thought, if you cannot clearly define your experiences and thoughts in your head, it will be very difficult to convey these to others. As far as the total immersion into someone else's life... I don't believe it's possible. To be fully aware of another's senses, maybe, but everyone's neurotransmitters and receptors of the brain work uniquely, so to interpret these experiences identically would take complete restructurization of the human brain... and even if someday this can be done, the change back to the original configuration of the self would eliminate any total understanding of how another person feels and thinks. That's my opinion, anyway.
- maconthefarlane
  November 1, 2007
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  I love the way you put that last line: "I don't want it to happen easy..." Communication is an amazing thing, and so is relationship. We put many limitations on ourselves, though, when we think that someone is unworthy of our time instead of asking them to elaborate on exactly what they're trying to say. We are so stupid and insignificant, but we can do something about it. We'll never become "smart," but we can learn so much when we try - and when we understand we may never "get it" - and that's fine.
  
  I would argue, though, that we ourselves do not even understand what we are going through at all - the only reason it seems to make sense is that the people around us are experiencing relative events. Recluses are "weird" because they've developed such a different perspective on the events of life that we can hardly understand anything that they're trying to say. That's also the beauty of different cultures and languages - we are all separated by so many thousands of miles that our contact has only to do with some primitive ancestor a few thousand years dead and gone: we love differently, idealize differently, have different religions, eat different foods, talk in different tones and with different sounds, and we are all human.
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Helpful.

The human mind is a deep space where we keep our vague speech, our complex thoughts, and our actions. It would be helpful to make our ability to voice our feelings more accurately and efficiantly. If I told you not to jump off a bridge because I know that Jesus won't catch you and take you into his loving arms, you won't know how I know, so you won't listen, even if I swear that I know, and tell you how. It's much more convincing to be the person who knows than the person being told.

I'm not sure how this would happen. When it would happen, or even if it's possible is still up in the air for me. Perhaps one day we'll be able to put a few suction cups on our foreheads, plug into the TV, and our families and friends can watch the jerk cut you off at the drive through as you were going to get your fat-free Big Mac with a dry iced green tea. In you hover craft.

33% Voted for by Oral Fixation, mudgod.

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