Sharing the Same Experience – Part Two

 

We think we know everything. The ripple of a wave can be calculated by the impact of a dropped pebble. The crashing of a meteor on a nearby planet can be determined to the second. The temperature of a star in a distant galaxy can be determined by its color. There is a solid answer to everything.

But can we agree on something as immaterial as an experience?

I once clumsily misplaced a container of syrup back to its shelf before dashing out the door for work. Missing the ledge, the plastic vessel bounced onto the kitchen floor, squirting the sticky liquid upward onto my dress pants. It was quite funny to me, knowing that I had to make a quick change of clothes and wondering how I would explain my tardiness. To my wife, however, the event was irresponsible, avoidable, and non-amusing as she grabbed a cloth to clean the thick ooze from the tile.

Did two things happen? Should I have been angry like my wife? Should my wife have laughed with me? Can two people really agree on anything?

Is it possible for anyone to even share the same experience? In any circumstance of life, if several people are asked to write a sentence of what just happened, what answers would we receive?

Should we be so quick to believe anything that is written in our history books? What is the single cause for any conflict? Can one sentence explain why any earthly war was declared? Did it start from the leader of one country calling the leader of another a bad name? Did someone shove someone without saying they were sorry? I cannot answer that because I was not there. And if I was, I’m positive my perception of the event would be quite different than yours.

I believe every conscious being lives inside the sphere of his or her own reality. If that is true, how precious is it when we see eye to eye for even a few brief seconds. How wonderful when we simultaneously stand under the shade of the same umbrella, or when our personal bubbles briefly conjoin into a single bubble before it pops, or when we become like two water droplets that instantly combine to become a single droplet before evaporating into nothing.

You are welcome to step inside my universe whenever you like. I will not expect you to laugh every time I laugh or mourn every time I mourn. I will respect your feelings and your universe also. But for those brief encounters that we will share the same feelings, let’s say, “I am happy to experience this with you.”

Filed under: Amazing Today, Life Adventures, Philosophy, Tales of Imagination