Why Don’t We Understand?

Why Don’t We Understand? 

Words of an anguished heart.

—

The greatest urge in a human being beside the urge to love and to be loved is to be understood. No? What do you think? I feel, in understanding itself there is love. Without understanding can there be love? And is that love at all? Or just attachment? Love, without understanding, is just like a body without the soul. Many love me, in their straight and twisted ways. But it’s very painful to realise at every moment that nobody really understands me. Or even tries to. Everybody has their own images about everyone else. And we perpetually live in images. We look at everyone through images, don’t we? Images hinder our understanding. It prevents us from understanding the reality of a human being. But, unfortunately, we are all miserably caught up in images. How can there be true understanding in this situation? 

My family, friends, and a few others who know me—nobody understands me. At this phase of my life, I don’t have any friends at all. There are three or four, but nothing deep. And my family members also never appreciated me. They had their own images about a ‘good boy’. Fortunately, I didn’t fit in. I lost their love. But, that’s okay. The worst didn’t happen. I am saved. As a consequence, from my very boyhood, I started to talk less and stay reserved. Because I didn’t feel connected to anybody. I don’t even feel it now. I don’t feel like talking at all. You can say, I am paralysed in talking. And maybe that’s why the urge to express myself through writing developed. Actually, there’s practically no one with whom I can talk. So, I write. I hope I haven’t been a nuisance here! 

I was never a talker. Always a listener. Everyone has this innate urge to express themselves. When nobody understands you, you feel disconnected and lonely. I don’t know if you have felt this or not. But this is very difficult to cope with psychologically. If you are psychologically not strong, you’d suffer a lot. Right now, I have that strength to accept that. Even if nobody understands me in my whole life, I am ready to accept that!

Yes, I am telling all this with a certain tinge of anguish. But, I am not broken. I am not crippled inside. It’s just that some realisations are very hard to accept. This is one of those. 

And why am I blaming it all on everybody…maybe I too haven’t been able to understand anybody. Maybe not even you, Porantika! Forgive me 🙏. I really tried…

I quote George Orwell here. He said: 

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

How right he was! 

I really appeal to all—try to understand each other. Put in the efforts. Understand deeply. It gives a different kind of strength to the one who feels understood and appreciated for all he is. Those who understand us deeply etch their marks in our hearts. If everybody understands everybody else, would there be so much conflicts, clashes, fightings, killings and injustices?

Why don’t we understand? Why?

—

Thank you.

Image Credit: shutterstock.