"I don’t suppose I really know you very well - but I know you smell like the delicious damp grass that grows near old walls and that your hands are beautiful opening out of your sleeves and that the back of your head is a mossy sheltered cave when there is trouble in the wind and that my cheek just fits the depression in your shoulder."
—Zelda Fitzgerald, in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald
It's been playing on my mind, that age-old question: How well do we really know anybody? And does it really matter?
I wonder... Do we know people best by first impressions? Or does knowing more about them - their backstory - cloud our judgment, unfairly? If so, what makes a person? Is it their life? Their attributes? What they project, into the world? If we learn something new about a person - another side to them - that doesn't fit with the person we thought we knew... does that mean that we never knew them very well? Or does knowing less about a person mean that we can better focus on their essence? Is a person the sum of their parts, or can one single part constitute an entire character, worth loving, liking or hating?
You know what I mean, don't you? When you become familiar with a person, though work or friends or study or something like that; you think you have a pretty good handle on them, according to your conversations and observations. Then, one day, somebody else whispers to you... "did you know that he/she [did something]?" It's a complete shock to you, because you never would have thought they would be capable of it, according to what you know of them. And it changes your perception... but somehow you don't want it to. Because you feel as though your initial, unclouded feeling towards them was accurate, regardless of this other dimension of their character, of which you have seen no sign. And so you wonder... does it matter? Does it really?
I wonder... Do we know people best by first impressions? Or does knowing more about them - their backstory - cloud our judgment, unfairly? If so, what makes a person? Is it their life? Their attributes? What they project, into the world? If we learn something new about a person - another side to them - that doesn't fit with the person we thought we knew... does that mean that we never knew them very well? Or does knowing less about a person mean that we can better focus on their essence? Is a person the sum of their parts, or can one single part constitute an entire character, worth loving, liking or hating?
You know what I mean, don't you? When you become familiar with a person, though work or friends or study or something like that; you think you have a pretty good handle on them, according to your conversations and observations. Then, one day, somebody else whispers to you... "did you know that he/she [did something]?" It's a complete shock to you, because you never would have thought they would be capable of it, according to what you know of them. And it changes your perception... but somehow you don't want it to. Because you feel as though your initial, unclouded feeling towards them was accurate, regardless of this other dimension of their character, of which you have seen no sign. And so you wonder... does it matter? Does it really?
Perhaps we should just take people for who they are. For what we see, firsthand. Maya Angelou once said, "the first time somebody shows you who they are, believe them". I agree. For one, it's simpler. Also, in a way, I think that people are as good as the person they want to be, in our presence. And even if who they show us doesn't mesh with the person they are to others, our perception of them will still be a hell of a lot more accurate than any assumption, considering our distance, and our limited knowledge.
People are to us who they are to us. We brush by each other, on the oft chance, time and time again, each in our own little worlds. Those meetings can be embodied in nudges, scars, loving caresses, wisdom tattooed onto our conscience, a hand reaching into our chest cavity and ripping out our hearts. Some people we are drawn to, others we walk right past everyday without a second glance. Every interaction, every connection, with another is an opportunity to learn a little more about their world; but we should never deign to believe that we know them. It should be enough just to capture each shared moment of intimacy, and take it for what it is. A glimpse, and nothing more.
We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.
We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.
T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
The photograph above was taken by Nicola Vincenzoni. You can find her photostream here.
2 comments:
I've just finished reading "A moveable feast" by E.Hemingway where he writes a lot about the Fitzgeralds, so discovering Zelda's letter made me smile. Thank you.
As to our perception of other people, I think we believe they are who we want them to be...maybe it's better to leave it at that. John Steinbeck said "No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself." So true.
Wow. That quote from Zelda really hit me in the chest. Instantly I thought of someone I loved from the moment I met them. I never believed in all of "that" until the moment. Anyways, at a later date he was talking about all the guys that like me and I said it didn't even matter because my heart only beats fast for one. He said how could that be; I didn't even really know him. This is exactly how deeply I see him. I know now my cheek does fit just so into the depression of his shoulder.
Love,
Sarah
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