On Being Seen and Heard

On being seen and heard. The social dimension of self-understanding. The impact of early childhood on our behaviors as adults. Attachment disorders. Belief in God.

Yesterday was my birthday and I don’t like celebrating my birthday, for various reasons. But I received a gift I will never forget: a text from my oldest son. I have rarely felt so seen as in the moment I read his short message to me. I realized, not for the first time, that the immense loss I have always carried with me of not knowing myself has produced a pathological obsession with being understood, but, ironically, the obsession felt so far beyond my capacity to realize that I consistently fled its demands, burying myself in sensations and emotions that would allow me to be as consciously unconscious as possible. I have always feared my children would never understand me, that they would never be able to comprehend the way I see the world, why I made the mistakes I made, what I’ve done to try to repair harm and become a better man. This pursuit of understanding, of course, is ongoing, and always will be for as long as I live, and its measurements varies among my kids. But yesterday was a milestone in that pursuit.

There seems to be, however, an aspect of the quest for self-understanding that requires a parallel mutuality. Because we are social beings in the strongest possible sense, there is a quick and hard limit to self-understanding in the absence of efforts to understand others. The more intimate understanding we seek from another, the more is required of us to be open to receiving whatever parts of themselves they are willing to give. We must make it our business to study others, to be quiet, observant, and anticipatory of what absorbs them and the ways in which they desire to give themselves to the world. Because there is a social dimension of what it means to be human, we cannot fully know ourselves when we don’t know others. When I run away from efforts to know myself better, I likewise run away from efforts to honor the understanding and empathy of others. My lack of attunement in my relationships is a mirrored lack of attunement to myself.

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