On Understanding

       

I do not think that this blog will gather lots of agreement, which is not really important. I am attempting to write about understanding, about what we can and cannot understand. To begin with, I am not sure that there is any real certainty to this. We do not even understand ourselves many times, let alone other people. And I do not believe we can really understand anything that is not of our class, culture or personal inclinations. Consider: Those of us who have never kept a checkbook or cooked a meal can only look on while others do these on our behalves. Or how can those in western cultures ever think of the use of female circumcision? And what is it in some of us that compels us to be on time while others are habitually late? You might think that race should be a factor in the categories I have invented but perhaps not. Race is no longer a cornerstone since there are so many of us who are truly racially blended. It may bear some influence but it is not the brick wall it once was.

The use of imagination...

Perhaps the best “take” we can have on understanding is in the use of imagination, for it is imagination that allows us to push out the hedgerows of the mind. Through our imaginations we can freely “make up stuff.” We can ask ourselves, “What would it be like if…” in a million different ways. We can always try to imagine what someone else may be thinking and feeling. For instance, if all I saw of life was the way in which I was raised, how might someone else feel if he or she were raised with a very different ethic? Could I try to fit myself into another, completely different scenario? Could I enter into a completely foreign experience as a participant observer and not a judge?

A long way down the road...

Understanding has a broad, unfinished scope to it. Perhaps it is somewhat like the horizon, something that lies before us that we can never fully touch. It may be a journey we can never complete, but we can go a long way down the road. In fact, I think we must.

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