Somewhere between 8 and 12 months after being born, human babies usually gain the understanding of something called “Object Permanence”. The idea behind this is that, before this stage of development if an object is taken out of the field of view of a baby, that object would cease to exist.
Being slightly older than 8 months, I feel it’s safe to say that all the people I know have the concept of “Object Permanence” down. I know that my keys still exist, even if I can’t find them right away. Something I find myself thinking about sometimes though is not just objects, but people. Sure I know that they still exist when I’m not around them, but it’s interesting to actually think about how they are perceiving the world. They’re off doing their own thing, having their own experiences throughout the day, and probably aren’t giving a second thought to what it is that others are doing.
We know that everyone is experiencing the world in mostly the same way as everyone else, but when you apply that thought to people who are “larger than life” (celebrities, famous company owners, politicians), it’s refreshing to have that commonality. It’s also interesting to think about how even the people you interact with daily perceive things.
When I was younger, I would think about how people perceive the world, and what was common/uncommon in different people’s day to day lives. When I thought about the perception of people, it led me to some strange things. For instance, to me John is a normal fixture in my day, but to John I’m a normal part of his day. I’m used to seeing John walk about, talk to people, interact with objects and the like. You don’t see yourself for most of the day though, and while you may be doing many of the same things, I found that I wasn’t thinking of myself like that.
This lead me to start thinking more and more about how my everyday actions were being viewed by other people. How my face was a common thing for people to see on a day to day basis. Basically thinking about what I was doing during the day, but trying to truly make it from a third person point of view. A few times while I was doing this, particularly on long rides on buses, I really started to be able to view myself in this way.
In retrospect I realized I was having minor out of body experiences. It’s been years though since that has happened, and I couldn’t replicate it to save my life. I just remember closing my eyes and really being able to see myself and how I could be viewed by other people. There were no big religious revelations, there were no moments of depression or euphoria, just a sense of awareness of what was going on around me.
I’m not sure that it’s not something I didn’t just imagine, or if it was just a dream (it’s very possible it was), but those few times it happened are intriguing to say the least. The things I took away from it I feel are still very important. Know that everyone sees you the same way that you see them, but at the same time they don’t see everything you do the same way you see those actions. Also remember that even if the person is rich, poor, famous, unknown, normal, or just a tad on the crazy side, that they experience life the exact same way you do.
Unless they’re on drugs. But that’s a whole other ballgame.
Blogger Disclaimer: Blog written at 4AM after inability to fall asleep. Blog may not make sense.
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