The Desire for Understanding

Among the most stereotypical of adolescent complaints is "Nobody understands me!"

On one level this is simply whining, as the amount of empathy people can have for each other, especially parents for their children, is a great deal more than the moody and frustrated are willing to admit. The human race is such a vast network of dreams and fears repeated billions upon billions of times that someone has been through something very much like your situation before.

On another level, though, there is the sad truth that as we have become a more complexly cognitive species, our ability to communicate has not kept up with our ability to think. Lacking mind-melds or some other sci-fi/fantasy ability (or at least one that has stood up to rigorous testing), we make do with the senses and the arts.

I find nothing more exquisite in life than conveying something to someone else, in all the ways it can be done - the quirk of an eyebrow, a snatch of song, a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, gentle pressure on the hand, a way of walking, alteration of behavior, the infinite majesty and versatility of words, the tone of a voice, an emoticon, the timed lack-of-speech in between each sound that bears all the meaning of the sounds themselves - but there is still an essential febrility in these things. We are waving flags at each other on a foggy night. Our consolation is making the flags bright as possible.

No matter how well I write, the stories are not in your head the way they are in mine. But oh, I am more grateful every day that they can be in your head in some form at all.