Journey #32

I have prosopagnosia – face blindness.  I do not remember faces or the names attached to them.  It’s possibly an aspect of Aphantasia and SDAM and there is research currently happening to try to determine that.  I am part of a forum of scientists, psychologists, researchers, and everyday people who have this wonky wiring and in that forum, someone asked this question:

Without looking in the mirror, could you describe yourself?

That is a very interesting question.  If we are asked by another person to describe our Self, it’s not that often we would start with a physical description of our features.  We have a tendency, as humans, to describe ourselves as what we do – I’m a teacher, a receptionist, a hairdresser, a carpenter.  My go-to description is Meditation Therapist and Holistic Counsellor.  We then will often follow up with where we live.  Often, but I think less importantly nowadays, we’d include our marital status, whether we have children….  and so on.

However we describe ourselves on the physical level, what we never really do is describe ourselves through our emotional, mental, and spiritual self.  I might, if appropriate, say that I follow a spiritual path, but I am very unlikely to say that I struggle with emotions and will cry at the drop of a hat.  At least not until someone knows me well enough that they’ve already worked that out!  But these are the very things that we seek to understand more when we set off on a Journey to discover Who We Are.  Why do I cry at the drop of a hat? 

I find this question infinitely interesting – on a personal level, but also because I can see how that question “Who Are We” in human society as a whole.  Who has ever started a description of themselves with “I am human.  I live on this beautiful planet we call Earth…”  We don’t say such things because we believe them to be obvious.

But to my mind, we need to state the obvious – because we forget this truth.  We are all human.  We all come from planet Earth.  And that, to my mind, makes us all family.  And, as family, we need to recognise each other and stop bickering.