Is it possible for a person to be fully seen??
Not naked, i mean here is to be witnessed completely. The thought process, the paradoxes, biases, the thing that we believe at 2 am that doesn’t match with our public self. Can anyone person/thing hold all of that?
I keep coming back to this for about past few months.
I read Anne Frank’s diary few days back and then immediately Women at Zero Point by Nawal El Saadawi. Two women, at different timelines, different traps. Obviously, both had different path of suffering yet both has a medium to express.
Anne had her diary. Firdaus had one night and a listenerbefore her execution. Both of them had something or someone to show their story to the world. Got witnessed in some form. Is it their complete, raw picture? Not sure. But many of women stories would have buried with them.
But, what if the person being witnessed isn’t pouring into one vessel? or had different forms ? A witness standing at any one point gets only a partial view.
This reminds me of a line from The Lunchbox. Irfan says, more or less, that unshared things fade. A life without a witness loses its edges.
So does feeling seen gives satisfaction? pride? legacy? or is it closer to relief? The brief sensation of setting something down? Or of having someone else hold the weight for a moment?
Maybe what we are actually looking for is not to be fully seen. That probably scare the shit out of us. Maybe we want to be seen enough. Just past the surface we perform to the external world, below the part we control. To have someone not flinch at what’s underneath.
Whether anyone was truly seen/witnessed by anyone. I doubt certainly. But maybe reaching towards it. The attempt to be seen, even partially, even imperfectly.
I am still thinking about this!
Cheers
PS: It’s not about social validation ;)
Check out the previous posts: Unhappened Data Points
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