For some reason I find it very difficult to believe I carry much existential weight in the minds of others. That is to say, even though I get phone calls from people from time to time, and thus I must conclude that people remember me, I cannot fathom that anyone would dwell on me for more than a fleeting moment. Perhaps family and loved ones would be an exception, but surely no casual acquaintances would really think about me. Right??
I feel safe assuming that most people can identify with this to some degree (sans celebrities, perhaps). But isn't it always a somewhat mystical experience to learn you've come up in someone else's conversation? Or when someone you don't know too well admits they were thinking about you? We can even experience this sensation (to a lesser degree) when someone does something as simple as use our name while speaking to us. But why? It's as though we don't truly believe we exist until someone else confirms it. And when they do, it's always so startlingly profound. But what makes it so?
Recently, I was talking to a fellow philosophy student with whom I have had several classes. We were talking on a more personal level and he asked if I was married. He said he was wondering because he and his wife had debated the fact after seeing me at a couple of different parties with the same girl. Certainly this is not a significant event, but it was somewhat surreal to think I had been discussed by two people I barely knew. And so I ask again, what causes this phenomenon? Or does it only happen to the insecure? Are we really so self-critical that we find solace in someone else being able to acknowledge us without repulsion? To know they would speak about us without our immediate presence there to require it? As a matter of polite social convention? Is this a negative thing? A beautiful thing?
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