I see the world differently

22,000TH THREAD

(sorry. you can continue.)

 

I was often told this was the case for me. When I was young, my doctor said I had something akin to low muscle joint tone, and because of this, walking to me had always felt like a rocking boat. I have never really understand what that means because nothing seems out of place. Everything is feeling fine and I have no reason to suspect my walking isn't normal, but the thought has lingered in my mind to this day. Also, I have sensory issues and I know that I see far more of the world than most because of it. The suns always more intense for me than others, strong smells cause me to look away and try to stop smelling, touching me often feels like an explosion of feeling and so on. So to put it simply, yeah, I think I see the world a bit differently than others.

 

I don’t see things differently than others, but my sense of taste is super strong, and I find things that most consider quite bland to be very flavorful.

 

Uh, hm. Well I'm pretty blind to a lot of things. I don't hear better than anyone else but I do have a very strange sense for peoples emotions.
I'm not gonna try and explain it since I struggle with that but that's only real skill I have like that it's the reason I never really defended myself against bullies when I was younger I could tell that they were upset or stressed about something.

 

Impossible to say, really. I think it'd be a conceit for me to say that I see the world completely different to others, but at the same time it would be the worst kind of arrogant presumption to say that I see the world the same way others do. I cannot speak for other people, only for myself. As an individual I am self-contained and whilst I perceive things, I have only my own individual perception, which may be completely different from objective reality, assuming such a thing exists...and who is to say it does? I am something of a solipsist in these things when it gets right down to it, because I have learned through painful experience that the image you have of a person is completely separate and rarely shared by the person in question; people are going to do and think and say whatever the hell they please and your own view of that be damned.

My thought process is something I have attempted in the past to describe several times with success, but only after I have thought about it...thereby defeating the point, because I had to think about it to simplify it so that I could convey it. I had to FORCE myself to put it in words that other people might be able to comprehend, thereby separating it from myself but, at the same time, keeping it as representation of myself. So on some level, I surely see the world the same way other people do, because if I did not I would not be able to do this; we would have no way of communicating if we did not share some common ground. But the fact that I HAVE to do this in order to convey my perspective is proof, to me at least, that my way of thinking is completely different to other people's. To what degree depends on the individual and the subject, and there is no real way of measuring it. At least, I haven't found one that I'd be satisfied with.

Ultimately I'm never going to know how people view the world, and I don't think I will ever consciously "understand" anything at all beyond an awareness that I am some kind of partially self-aware entity, because my thought processes and understanding is subconscious and instinctive; it's not something I really think about unless I force myself to. If I did, I would literally never get anything done, because I would be chasing myself endlessly trying to identify every little thing as it happened, and I would be forever lagging behind. My responses and reactions to things can be involuntary and subtle as well as voluntary and overt, and my awareness of them is situational.

Ultimately I'm not entirely sure any of it really matters. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. Nothing is gained, and nothing is lost. There are only a loose sequence of events perceived in a linear fashion, and a vague sense of self. Life, and the world, are nothing beyond what you choose to allow yourself to comprehend. If you're not aware of it, then who is to say it exists at all?

We each have our own perspective, and the way we communicate with each other is imprecise and incapable of really describing what it is we experience. At least from my perspective. Whether or not other people share that view, and how much weight they place on it if they do, is an unknowable quantity. Even if people agree with the principle, I have absolutely no idea how they relate that to themselves, so at best it's a concession that we may or may not have some common ground. That will have to do until someone invents a way to allow individuals to share their consciousness...and even then, who is to say that will be enough, because surely you would lose your individuality if you merged it with another person's? Troubling indeed...