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- A couple days ago siva0 posted an entry that got me thinking about the assumptions we make about other people... not just online, but in real life as well. I already wrote about this in his (her?) guestbook, but I've still been thinking about it. A long time ago I wrote something about what I thought some online people looked like. A few of those people I've seen pictures of since then, and I was pretty wrong about them. Not that it matters what we look like. But it's weird. When you read something someone writes you sort of make up a voice for them, you make up the person you think they are. And even in real life, we're making assumptions all the time. People are always assuming that they have me figured out, which surprises me because I don't even have myself figured out, and I've known me for like my whole life. And so when I do things or say things that people don't expect, they get surprised. Sometimes I even surprise myself. And I already wrote something like this, but people assume they know what I think and believe, and that makes me sad, because how can they fit me into a box like that? How can we fit anyone into a box? We're all large. We all contain multitudes. (That's Whitman, by the way.) And does it matter who we are? You read my words, and does it matter where they come from? I think it does, though, and that's why we assume like we do. We like to be able to interpret things, to figure things out. I'm still thinking about this, so maybe I'll write more about it later.
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