Differences

 It's a funny part of human nature to be selfish. It comes with a ton of nuances and consequences and it takes many years to understand this blessing/damnation. One of the consequences of selfishness which is mentioned in the story of Narcis is humans end up liking only what seems to be the most similar to themselves. The extreme of it is unhealthy and ends up with narcissism which comes with self-centeredness and takes us away from having productive social interactions. The result of it is putting something forward more than it has to be and interestingly enough it is not the opposite of sacrifice. Too much sacrifice can also be carrying certain notes of narcissism. I want to skip this and get to what I feel is one of the more pronounced and costly consequences of selfishness. Dealing with other people is a collision of two different worlds of values, history, and ideologies. 

Time does not allow this understanding of differences to happen immediately. It takes a lot of interactions to pass through the surface and reach to the core differences and because of that, the first naive assumption is to think of others exactly as us. To project our own way of thinking into them and think they are the same as us. What comes with this way of thinking is our unresolved issues come to the surface when someone starts mirroring us. A self-initiated problem that is rooted in our own problems and is projected to the outer world through our mind and perceived by our eyes and felt through our own emotions. Maybe it is a corrective action for life to make us deal with ourselves and polish us. We are the highest detailed works of matter we have ever encountered and we are always evolving. 

The brushes of the creator paint the painting of being with different brushes. On the largest scale, the evolution of matter takes billions of years, and then millions of years are spent on the evolution of species to reach us. The finer brushes happen to paint our behavior and language and it is all an evolving process the perfect the work of Art. 

The differences between humans and their inherent self-centeredness due to their outward projected perspective causes friction between the different characters of the story of life. These collisions continue until they become smooth like the surface of the rocks that come to the shore by the waves of water.

Today I was listening to the song Suzzane by Leonard Cohen and a line of its lyrics goes:

He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them

The way it is looking at social interactions as sailing in the sea to me is beautifully accurate. A way of being captured and imprisoned by a goddess who is demanding the sailors feel humiliated against the waves and fear of feeling drowned in the water or losing the way in the place where no one is around for the longest distance. Until they understand what it means to be. Until they find out what was missing from their life and it is the experience.