currently, i am taking philosophy of the mind. every single day, i leave with my mind racing from the lecture/discussion held in class. today, the question we discussed was: how do you ever know what someone is thinking?
after much debate, the answer is simple - you cannot magically tell what someone is thinking by trying to put yourself in their shoes, analyzing them, or thinking extremely deeply about how you think they are feeling. private thoughts of the mind are overrated. what is not considered often enough is what is right in front of us, public behaviors. public behaviors provide us with the best clues as to what people are thinking. inner feelings are nothing more than public displays. now, i know you could be reading this and thinking to yourself, "what about the people that are good at masking how they feel? what about the manipulative bitches that pretend to be something or someone that they are not?"
that is when your skills need to kick into full gear. after experiences in life, one should and can distinguish genuine behavior from that that is artificial. some say that they cannot tell when someone is being genuine, or just simply do not see it as something that is possible. my answer to that is one of two things - 1. you just have not experienced enough, which is not your fault. in time, you will be able to tell if someone is the real deal. 2. you may just be in denial about what it is that you are seeing. normally, if you are really focusing on how someone is acting around or towards you, what you are seeing them portray is how they are feeling.
i thought that this made a lot of sense. rather than making excuses for someone and saying things like, "i know that is not how they really feel" or "i know they do not mean it", how about saying "wow, that is how they feel" or "it is what it is".
thoughts?
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