The human psyche is a fascinating place. For years, psychology has fascinated me. And I don’t mean the whole shrink “Tell me about your childhood” thing (honestly, I think it’s the biggest scam in the country, but I digress…). No, what really fascinates me is what makes people tick. Why do they behave the way they do?

And the one thing that I’ve learned over and over is that you can never, ever understand 100% why other people react the way they do, and unless you’ve spent years and years studying a particular person (spouses are good at this), you really don’t know how anyone is going to react when you bring up a particular topic.

Let me quote something real quick:

The Book: It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell:
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What’s happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my… well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a… tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what’s this roaring sound, whooshing past what I’m suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I’m dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There’s an awful lot of that now isn’t it? And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
[dies]
The Book: Curiously the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias, as it fell, was, ‘Oh no, not again.’ Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly *why* the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

This is a scene from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, in which the Improbability Drive very improbably turns two missiles into a sperm whale and pot of petunias, respectively. It’s a very funny sequence, but what’s really fascinating about this is the Whale’s first thoughts.

“Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by ‘Who am I?’” Who am I, indeed. This is the basic question that we face throughout our lives, and we’re constantly defining ourselves by.. well.. everything. We define ourselves by race, by gender, by sexual orientation, by religion, by occupation. We define ourselves by class, social circles, interests, hobbies, passions, food preferences, height, weight, disabilities and skills.

In the 21st century and particularly with my generation, we’ve been raised and taught that all people are people, regardless of these things. Blacks and whites, men and women, Christians and Muslims are all supposed to be equal — we’re all just people. And we’re taught to treat each other the way we would like to be treated, regardless of those differences.

I, for instance, don’t care if you’re black, white, gay, straight, transgender, disabled or normal. I’m going to do my best to treat you the same way I would treat someone else. If I like you, I like you regardless of those things. If I dislike you, I dislike you regardless of those things. Your race shouldn’t come into the picture at all, nor should your gender or any of those other factors.

I strive every day to keep true to the above statement.

But when it comes to who I am, it’s much harder for me to let go of the differences. I look at my friend D, and I don’t even think about the fact that he’s black. I look at my friend M and I don’t even notice her glasses. I just see D and M as what they are: my friends. However, when I look at pictures of myself, I don’t see Brian. I see this big, glaring hearing aid sticking out of my ear. I see that my nose is gigantic. I see that I have an overbite and my teeth aren’t straight and pearly white. I hear that my voice is a bit nasal (a bit? maybe a lot).

I know logically that my friends don’t see those things. When they see me, they see their friend Brian. Not my hearing aid. Not my nose. Not my teeth or overbite. But I have a hard time convincing myself of that.

When I get a first date that I think went well, but not a second one, I wonder: “Was it because of my hearing aid? My voice?” And I know that I can’t change those things and that if those are the reasons, then I don’t want to date her anyway. In all likelihood, it’s none of those things. But I wonder nonetheless.

I don’t think of this as an insecurity, per se. I’m confident in myself, and I’m really secure in the fact that I do hear as well as I do and speak as well as I do, considering the degree of my hearing loss. It’s astounding, actually.

Instead, I think of it as an identity. It’s part of who I am — separate from my personality and overall view of myself, but part of who I am nonetheless.

What makes people tick, in a sense, is their view of who they are. All of these little things coming together to determine their outlook and responses to external stimuli (e.g. me).

It fascinates me, this ability we have to look at ourselves through a lens that few others see. And it fascinates me (and frustrates me to no end) our ability to forget that others have a different lens, especially when it comes to themselves.

And so when someone is unable to differentiate between the way they view themselves or the way they think others view them (e.g. I’m a guy with a hearing aid) versus the way others actually see them (e.g. their friend Brian), I have a little sympathy. I understand how difficult it is to separate what you can’t change from what you can. I understand how difficult it is to separate your race, gender, sexual orientation, or disability from your personality.

But I only have a little sympathy. Only a little bit, because part of growing up is realizing that we’re all people, that we’re all the hero of our own story, that we all have our own view of ourselves and that others have their own views of us, and that sometimes those views don’t mesh up. Part of being an adult is understanding that who I think I am is not necessarily who others think I am, and that it’s my responsibility to ensure that I am broadcasting the “me” that I want others to see.

The human psyche fascinates me. It’s incredible how convincingly we can share a version of ourselves with the world that is completely at odds with the way we view ourselves inside. And it’s equally amazing to me how frustrated we get with the world when they don’t “get” us the way we think we should be understood. Though I strive to be as true to myself and to others as I can be, I am guilty of the same quirks as the rest of us.

People are fascinating.