Everyone is living a life we're never gonna know everything about. Each person we come across is just another story in our minds. However, we dehumanize others when we look at them as just another idea.
Yesterday I came across a TED talk titled 'The Danger of a Single Story'. The speaker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, spoke about how a one-person narrative can tend to negate other authentic and rightful experiences of people. The context or origin with which we envision any narrative creates the foundation with which we perceive other stories related to them.
Please find the link here: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?geo=hi&subtitle=en
This video allowed me to provide the grace and consideration I needed. Sometimes, we tend to unconsciously create a whole idea of someone based on a label that we're familiar with. This action dehumanizes and discredits all of their other day-to-day lived experiences that we're not familiar with.
Each person, place or object existing within a system, has an intricate series of experiences they have been subjected to. Viewing someone else's story requires us to cultivate a sense of empathy. Meaning, we're never going to understand what it feels like to live their narrative. However, for a minute, we can care enough to listen to their point of view.
Empathy is a form of humility. It humbles our thought process. It nudges us to remember that all that we know, might not even be all there is. This is why we need to tread gently with others. We'll never know the intentions guiding their lives, thought processes, psychological evolution, and ways of being.
The hardest thing through this is that you wish people understand your experiences. But they can only understand you, to the level of their experiences.
None of our experiences are the same. Intersectional? Yes. Eventually, we've just got to play the cards we're dealt with.
