Feeding My Ignorance

The wonders of the world wide web - not only have I made contact with lots of old friends, I have also made some very good new ones.  I love the diversity of characters that you get to meet - and, in my experience, there are plenty of 'good' people - or - at least, people who give the impression of being 'good' because we all know how easy it is to create a persona that is false.

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There was a post, just this morning, that talked about people wearing masks - the author said that everyone starts off with some sort of mask - until there is sufficient trust in the relationship to allow that mask to fall.  However, for some, they cannot allow the mask to slip at all - worse, some wear a mask without realising it.  It has been worn for so long that they have, basically, forgotten their true self.

As usual, I don't see this as a black and white thing - rather I think that everyone retains some elements of the mask (almost) all of the time.  Is there anyone who knows me 'completely' - make-up free (so to speak)?  Probably not, although a select few come very close.  There will always (I think) be private thoughts that remain hidden.  I also suspect that the masks are a bit layered - so different circumstances would reveal different parts of the 'real' me - to different people - at different times.  There remain - I think - some things that only I know about myself.

If someone was sufficiently interested (and I really don't think that would be the case!) then by getting together a group of people and piecing together their individual bits of the jigsaw it would be possible to cobble together a reasonable representation.  Two things would make it incomplete - the first is that there are those things mentioned above that only I know, the second is that whoever is doing the piecing together doesn't know what he (or she) is looking for.  There is no way of knowing when the picture is complete.

Yes, the investigation may show up clear gaps, but many of the omissions will not be very obvious - even when they are huge chunks of my life and thoughts.  Only I could be sure that I was covering all of the ground - and even then I would be relying on the fact that I could remember everything - so - perhaps there is no one who is equipped to get the whole picture.....

Is that a worrying thought - that not even you, yourself, know all about you?

This touches on a few other aspects that I have previously written about - mental models are always incomplete - even your own mental model of yourself.  Some of what we remember is incorrect - even about ourself.  Wow!  So there is a level of deception involved if we ever claim to "know our own mind"!  I've said before that we cannot know what effect our actions have had - are having - or will have - on others.  So it is with other people's actions (or inactions) and their impact on us.

There will almost certainly be things happening - right now - somewhere - that will affect me later today, or tomorrow, or in ten years time, or whenever - and I have no way of knowing what those things are.  Here we are coming back to the "if only" - the "only if" - and yes, the "what if" - where the myriad on interconnections around the globe are in some way coming together to change my life in the future.

This is the fundamental premise of the current US TV Series "Touch" - how there are webs of interconnectedness that link things. Like Jake, the central character and others in the series, there are some people in this world who are more aware of these interconnections than others are.

As an aside - it was telling that one reviewer suggested that the series was "awfully complicated" - that I think goes to show how for many people this idea is actually quite new and difficutlt to really grasp.

Whilst the series is, clearly, written to maximise the impact of the 'unlikely' connections and to ensure "good TV", the type of interactions are for the most part completely plausible to me.  I could drag out plenty of stories from my own experience where I can recognise that something that happened in my life comes back to play an important role in later times - either for me, or for someone else!

I wrote before in the "only if" post that it is impossible to know what would have happened if things had been different in our past - it maybe that the circumstances for present day experience would simply have been set up in a slightly different way, or it may be that we would be unable to do particular things now, because we missed the opportunity "then" to set ourselves up for it.

What I find very interesting is that often my 'story' changes - by that I mean that I see something happening 'because' of something else and I think to myself "ah - so that's why I had to do ....." - then, at a later date, I discover that wasn't really the 'ultimate' goal after all - instead there was something else.  Sometimes it is something very different - unexpected and unrelated to what seemed like the 'obvious' answer.

An example - I started running many years ago - mainly to get fit for playing football - then, it became a regular thing and I found myself entering races - ran several marathons and it seemed like my 'destiny' had been found as far as the running was concerned.  Then I became less fit - but continued running and met a few who have become long term friends - so, was that the reason I had agreed to go for that first run - well - perhaps not yet.

One of those friends was also my boss - we used the runs as time to 'communicate' away from the pressure of the 'day job' and it was often the only time we had to chat;  I have been able to experience different places because of my running - was the purpose of me running to travel?  There are a number of things that have happened because, when my friend over thrity years ago said - "I'll go running if you do" - I said "OK" just to make sure he went out for a run!!!

I've written before - we are where we are - and nothing can change that - what has happened cannot be changed - it must be accepted - good and bad.  However, things are so complex, so inter-related that it is impossible for us to know everything that has affected us or everything that we have affected.  I just hope that, in the final reckoning, the good that I have done will outweight the bad!