Strangers Don’t Exist
The idea of the stranger dies with age. As children, most everyone is a stranger and until we are whole, this seems to be true. What about the moment we become “whole” if we ever do become such a thing. Even the tiny pieces we collect of ourselves as we move through life create an image of sorts that may not yet be “whole”, but it certainly gives enough insight into who we are that the idea of the stranger simply dissipates.
The moment one decides upon a certain characteristic, because yes, our personalities are a decision we make inevitably. We learn the different personalities either through experience, through literature or media, or by happenstance. I, personally, tend to take on the personalities of the characters I currently am reading. I play around with the different emotions and thoughts that cross through my mind and body. Feeling out whether or not to keep them. As I do this, and as we all do this, we build a person of sorts. One that we portray, but also one that influences the way we interact with others; strangers.
A big part of this is perception and it can be argued that perception is dictated by experience through the senses. What we can see, touch, feel; sense. We compile our experiences in our brains and regurgitate a certain expectation of sorts about the world and the people in it. Humans thrive through connections and most connections are first experienced through perception using the senses.
The moment I lock eyes with a “stranger” they can no longer be such. I am too much of a person not to imbibe my own experiences and emotions into this “stranger.” It’s impossible not to “read” them and make assumptions. It’s the human experience to use prior knowledge and apply it to the here and now. So, like scientists, we experiment with the concept of the human by familiarizing them into something comfortable.
For example, I may walk down the street and see an old man. Immediately I think of my grandfather. Just, naturally. Already I’ve associated this stranger with a certain aura that reflects the comfort of my own life. Of course, this particular stranger may not be anything like my grandfather in the slightest. He may not look like him either. I just can’t help attaching my own experiences to this person. I’ve collected too much of myself to not project my knowledge of the human spirit onto this stranger. In doing so, he is no longer a stranger. From the moment I perceived them, they became known to me.
And of course, all of my experiences could produce an assumption that is wrong, but isn’t that the fun part? Breaking down your own assumptions of the world and gathering new and interesting information. At the end of the day, our encounters are mostly an exchange of information that is either bolstering, disappointing, devastating, or neutral. Children simply don’t have enough pieces of themselves, made up from the world around them, to project any sort of nonsense onto strangers. It’s a blank slate. Only children truly have the experience of “the stranger” because of it. Learning from scratch and building themselves up.
As adults, we are too interconnected to ever be strangers. The similarities and differences becoming easier and easier to discern as we grow and develop. And I’m not saying to judge a book by it’s cover, but the simple act in doing this creates a familiarity or a comfortability that negates the idea of “the stranger.”
Furthermore, if we flip this and decide that strangers do exist to the adult human being, then we have to consider that we are strangers to ourselves as well.
Think of your friends and who you consider yourself to "know." When we "know" someone and they become acquainted with us, they are no longer a stranger. But what do we really know about our friends? Could you list their embarrassing moments? Their accomplishments? Maybe. Could we decipher the energy of their inner dialogue? Probably not.
Now think of yourself and what you know of who you are. How you define "me" and what it means to be you. Do you know everything about yourself? Why certain things trigger you? Everything that brings you fulfillment? Maybe. Most likely though, you question who you are a lot more than you're confident in who you are. It's human nature! And people are constantly evolving. Hopefully, anyway.
Can we really claim to "know" any person ever then? If we're still figuring out who we are? You experience your inner dialogue and emotions in a way you cannot experience others unless you're gifted in that area. Even if you could experience another persons inner dialogue or emotions, they may not mean much to you. You may not be able to derive knowledge from them.
We are not even completely plugged into ourselves. We have an idea of our subconscious but we aren't totally connected to it naturally. There is so much about the individual that has yet to be discovered that no one is beyond a stranger to anyone.
I don't like that though. So, I changed the narrative.
It's not that everyone - including ourselves - is a stranger to us. It's that everyone, upon eye contact, is a friend. You cannot know a friend any more than you can know a stranger. Flip that. Every stranger is your friend.
This is a narrative I can get on board with and it baffles people when I talk to complete strangers as if they're old friends but I'd rather live in a friendly world than a strange one. Treat the human beings around you like a comfort. Open yourself up and make connections. Every friend you have now was a stranger once. Some friends from your past are strangers now. It's all very relative.
There is no difference between a stranger and a friend other than comfort and time. So, bring comfort to the table always. Treat strangers like friends when conversing. It's a relief, I can attest.
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