Multitude

The Freedom in Misunderstanding

For too many years, whenever anyone spoke of my joy, I would assume it to undermine my pain. No one had told me about the Theory of Relativity, how if I hold my thumb up and close one eye, it will jump to the side if I close the other. How two things can be true at once.

I close my right eye and cover a painting; I close my left and cover a door. Two objects that ordinarily and always remain one foot away from each other can somehow both be covered by the same finger with none of us moving.

Pain and joy exist in the same way. Your interpretation of me is true from where you stand. Who am I to argue otherwise? I can never close your eyes and watch the world jump around your thumb, or stand in the endlessness of your lived experience: the archive of every memory, dream, or sorrow.

I offer myself this same understanding. Knowing you could never see the world through the particular constellation of moments that have shaped my vision, or the silhouette you occupy within it as a result.

There are memories people have of me that I will never know about my own life. This is why individual perception is too narrow a vessel to contain the abundant conflict of reality’s truth. What appears opposing may simply be incomplete. We aren’t meant to know every color.

I spend less time arguing with misunderstandings, mistaking any kind of difference for error, because there isn’t one. I believe what you see is true from where you’re standing; that contradiction is the greatest promise of humanity, that true freedom is found in the acceptance of this multitude.