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November 2009 
How do you feel about strangers?
Posted on Aug 29th, 2008
by 
Naumadd
Naumadd
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for August 29, 2008:
Growing up listening to the conversations and storytelling of the adults in my family served to make me a passionate people-watcher, student of human nature, lover of story, story creation and storytelling. I'm love people-watching and love to listen to them talk. Every "stranger" I encounter is a priceless chance to learn more about us humans in general and about myself specifically. I love to be reminded as often as is practical of the seemingly endless diversity of life and, especially, of human life. There seems no limit to human complexity and the dynamics of our interactions with one another and the world who is our ultimate parent. I hope I'm authentically and consistently seeking the unexpected because it is only the unfamiliar that stretches the envelope of my own experiences, my own understanding, which stretches the boundaries of who I am, can be and will be. That's growth which is absolutely essential for human life's greatest potential quality. My belief is we have this one and only life. I have long and genuinely intended to explore all it means to be "human" and, perhaps, extend that meaning beyond its traditional limits in whatever ways I'm able. It's my right and, as I also believe, my responsibility to do so. Whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant, there is always value in meeting or, in the least, in observing "strangers" and always a tragedy to deliberately avoid strange encounters.
Of course, of the greatest understandings possible to us is the truth that "strangers" aren't as unfamiliar to our own life as we typically think and, paradoxically, because a profound portion of the individual spirit is inaccessible to others, also more strange to our personal experience than we can genuinely understand in a single lifetime.
Still, we must try. I believe nature wishes us to make connections which have never before been made or have never before been possible.
Of course, of the greatest understandings possible to us is the truth that "strangers" aren't as unfamiliar to our own life as we typically think and, paradoxically, because a profound portion of the individual spirit is inaccessible to others, also more strange to our personal experience than we can genuinely understand in a single lifetime.
Still, we must try. I believe nature wishes us to make connections which have never before been made or have never before been possible.
Access: Public
Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. Thank you for saying this far more brilliantly than I ever good.
You're a wonderful stranger. :)
yes! I'll second them yesses. this is an exquisite read. you simply said it all. thank you.
I'm thirding the yes and adding a wow…thank you for this.
I'm going to be naughty and buck the trend. I've got a question, actually— about “a profound portion of the individual spirit is inaccessible to others, also more strange to our personal experience than we can genuinely understand in a single lifetime.” I'm wondering how spirit can be inaccessible to 'others'… which is to 'ourselves' (that is, you may see me as other, or I see you as other)… but we are at the deepest level of seeking is, actually, spirit. A game of hide and seek, a dance no doubt– a beautiful dance. I loved the part at the very end where you say that nature wants us to make connections that we've never before made, or never thought possible. Well, I connect with gratitude to you for that thought! Love this blog!
Hi Martha, BB, Tara, Siona. You're all most kind in your comments. I'm very happy some of my own thoughts resonate with you. Believe it or not, that's always a real surprise to me. Clarity is often so elusive just within myself and doubly elusive communicating it to another. One isn't entirely sure one even approaches it, let alone reaches it. And that's the meat of the issue.
What I mean in the comment about a profound portion of our own spirit being inaccessible to others is that we can only ever truly see the external expressions of spirit and never the internal roots of that spirit directly. My only experience with your “spirit”, for example, is what you express here or in other exchanges we may have. Your “spirit” which is originating and expressing itself is still inaccessible to me and likely always will be. We see around us only expressions of the spirits of others, not the spirit itself. We see the art, but the artist is elusive. They, sadly, are significantly unreachable to direct experience. As our culture likes to say, “I can't get inside your head” to see what's ticking. I only have access to your “I” through your external self expressions of it - and yours of my “I”. That's not to say we can't attain a pretty close approximate understanding of all that another is, it's only to say our understanding of the total person will be grossly incomplete. This means the probability of misunderstanding and misinterpretation is high and is likely to remain so no matter the quantity and quality of our interactions. If we manage a genuinely good understanding of one another, the truth is, we've managed against incredible odds against us. Most of what's within remains within. Again, we ought not let that fact deter us from trying to reach from our own deepest roots to connect directly with the deepest roots of another. I believe it to be our greatest possible adventure. If, at some point, human beings are genuinely able to “meld two minds” into one, I believe it will be the birth of what we cannot even now imagine.
Also, when I say nature wants us to make connections never before seen and never before possible, what I mean is never before seen or possible anywhere in the universe at any time before. To be open to strangers BECAUSE they are strangers is to significantly increase the probability of something almost or entirely new in nature.
Perhaps nature never before had a conscious designer. Through us and perhaps other lifeforms with “consciousness”, finally, it does.