Things I have learned in 2022 V

The more I find out about the lives of others, the more alone I feel.

Some have stories – many have stories – of such heartbreak that it tenderises my heart like a physical pummelling. The man from Palestine who cannot travel home; whose family he fears for on the Gaza Strip. There are tales of heroism – the mother who cares so diligently, so uncomplainingly, for a husband with Parkinson’s and four grown sons, expressing special compassion for the one who overcame addiction and psychosis. There are tales of blessings – the son who bought his parents’ farm in Pembrokeshire for a cut-price sum and now hopes to set up a local business in Wales. There are tales of contentment – how this job, covering football, is a joy and a hobby, it’s not like work. Tales of betrayal – the guy whose girlfriend told him a web of lies and nearly destroyed his faith in relationships.

I feel in – like roots delving into soil. Get a sense of the scent of their feeling, the chemistry of their emotion.

Like a vampire I suck some blood but unlike a vampire I am not nourished. Instead, it is as though I have these others’ feelings as harmless, mainly harmless, fellow travellers along with whatever it is that I feel. Whatever that is. Those others’ feelings have a reality more certain than mine.

Imagine, the stimulation of the optic nerves by the light outside the self – how that is more real than the inner imagining of any scene or vision.

What I sense from others feels like the real world of emotion. My own feelings may as well be counterfeit.

But what if I am just imagining their experience? What if what I believe to be real is a meta-illusion?

In such uncertainty, lives capsize.