June 10th, 2007

getting to know you?

» Posted in Love, Matchmaking, Relationships at 10:55 am

I sometimes wonder if anyone ever really knows another person? We are all such complex diamonds with so… many faces. We may show one or a few faces to each person but it is hard to show all to one person. It sometimes takes a lifetime to see our own faces, let alone another’s. Maybe it is just in our private moments that we really appear in a pure unadulterated state?

Starry starry night

Jungian psychology is a great model and brings meaning to difficult or challenging life conditions along with understanding of self and others. Jung’s theory of projection is in particular very enlightening – like a movie projector we project our unlived, unknown or unconscious faces onto others who we either love or hate depending on how we feel about the face! We are all carrying around our own personal dvd & mp3 players and switch channels when interacting with others? Of course it can get pretty noisy and chaotic when a few of us get together. How do you hear what someone is really saying above the din of all these movies? How do you see the essence or soul of another amidst our flashing light shows? Sometimes you just wanna tell the person next to you on the Tube that their headphones don’t work anymore (obviously no-one’s told them and they go on blissfully unaware that we all get to share their love for heavy metal or whatever?)

In my own case it has always been hard to differentiate my own virtual reality with others’. I remember when I met my ex-husband in my early twenties, I was reading a book about Vincent van Gogh’s life. It was a great read & escape at a time when I was weary from traveling overland through Asia and living very basically on the ‘hippy route’. Further on in time we married, I started waking from my nap the day of the wedding & wondered who in the hell he was? Needless to say that when I managed to get glimpses of who he was, (as I gather that is all that is really possible), I didn’t like him much & I certainly didn’t want to share a life with him.

Looking back on it from all these years, maybe I projected the creative me onto him which was obviously stirring through the read about Vincent? Boy you gotta love those paintings of Vincent’s, particularly the courageous & bold use of color & communication of his feelings! And yes at the time my ex was a very good artist in his own fashion and I thought that I wasn’t creative at all? So it seems yet again its all about ME yes MOI!!!!

Great thing about life experience is that it knocks all the bullshit out of you (….. along with the stuffing & the wind!) I may not be a painting type of artist but I discovered down the way through life challenges that I have another type of creativity. I now consider myself a people artist & I do have a wonderful way with words and people. I love color, communication, investigating mystery & adventure. All the requisites for intrepid research and learning about relationships as understanding people offer all those in abundance! And yes from this perspective, my life has been just one long ‘Starry, starry night!’