Beetles in boxes

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought experiment: 

"Suppose everyone has a box that only they can see into. No one can see into anyone else's box. Each describes what he or she sees in the box as a 'beetle'." 

In this analogy, no one can be sure if one's beetle is the same as the other's; just like we can not be sure if my suffering is the same as yours. This explains why 75% of our conversations are miscommunications. Words are just beetles in boxes. This is the reason why we never feel understood because we can't know for sure what is inside the boxes of words. Our ideas are imprisoned by our words. 

If that is the case, then how will we ever understand each other? How can we see through the box?

In wondering this I remembered another philosopher's words. (though he didn't want to be called a philosopher. He preferred to be identified as a poet.) The 20th-century author, Khalil Gibran, who I may say is one of my personal favourites, seems to have found a way for us to solve this problem. In his book of proverbs collection: Sand and Foam, he stated, "the reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he  does not say."

According to Gibran, the only way we can communicate with understanding is by learning to listen to each other's silence. I am not sure what that even means, but I know how to hide my identity behind the doors of words. I know how to tell people what they want to hear just to escape an argument. And the people I connect with are the ones who put my unspoken thoughts into words. Maybe that is why we like to hide in poems and novels, they put forth whatever we have in mind. That might be the reason why we make fortresses behind a screen because we feel like the phone says more about ourselves than reality. 

But have we paused to wonder if those poems were written by people we miscommunicated? Do we know that the posts on social media are all done by the same human beings whom we considered the opposite? It seems to me along the way we got accustomed to mediators. We shout our silences through them. 

Now I know what Utopia is, it is where everyone communicates without a mask. It is where we throw our veils and see, what the person next to each one of us looks like. 

Photo Credit: Havilah Moges