Understanding

There's an old phrase that goes something like 'All happy people are the same; all unhappy people are different each in their own way'. (I know I've got that wrong, but thats the sense of it. Or at least my sense of it.) Sometimes, I think that understanding works the same way. There isn't any global 'understanding'. Each person has to be understood pretty much on their own terms, and thats tough to do. Global assumptions and beliefs are possible, but they don't explain past the lower levels on the Hierarchy of Needs. (I know, different concept entirely. Work with me here.)

For example, my sister in law.

My sister in law (one of them) is a bright person, but she's very hard for me to understand. I am sure that this is due to my view of the world, which tends to be pretty simplistic. She's a senior functionary at FEMA, and her view of the world seems to be very complex. It revolves around The Government, and I think can be summarized as We Know Better Than You; We Can't Tell You Why, So You Have To Trust Us. I don't think she'd agree with that assessment, but thats the impression she gives. She's not a bad person, but that attitude drives me up a wall, and makes it very hard for me to talk with her past a fairly simple level. I wish I could, though, because I think she has insights that would be useful for me to understand. I think they'd make me more capable of understanding. Its not that I want to know how tough the world really is. I'd just like to be able to temper some of my prejudices with understanding how tough it could be. Not all of it. Like the guy said, I likely couldn't handle the truth.

But if I can't even get past this obstacle, I guess I'm likely to stay at the idle-chatter level of understanding. Its okay. I don't understand why it irritates me that she and her husband got a Kitchen Aid mixer like mine as a Christmas present, either. And if I don't understand me....