a way of looking at people

people seem to irritate us so often. but it truly only is our inner shortcomings that make us feel these negative and rejective emotions. humans can be hard to deal with but imagine a world without them; they help us learn and understand, grow. I am no Sartre fan but this man said :

“Perhaps it is impossible to understand one’s own face … People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked? You might say — yes you might say, nature without humanity.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

We need other people to understand and get to know ourselves ! While Sartre looks at humanity and other people in a very dark and negative way (don’t read his shite. it did not contribute to the quality of my life), as many other philosophers do, I want to invite you to see the light and beauty, the g-dliness that is being revealed in these living creatures we call human. Everything we know we learned from someone ! All the joy we have means nothing if we don’t share it with another of our kind! Most of our sacred memories and moments that we cherish involve other people! All the destructive and harmful things people did to us ended up catalyzing our growth and self-understanding ! “l’enfer, c’est les autres”? No ! People decide to put themselves in a position of seeing others as hell, for whatever reasons, even if it just means that the self-reflection they force unto us feels oppressive (this feeling is valid) ! Let’s extract all the beauty that all kinds of human encounters bring into our life, revealed beauty but also beauty that we have to work for and find ourselves. 

What would life be without these magnificent and horrifying human contacts ? Saying hello to a stranger, people talking about their dogs on the streets, a couple having an argument on the train, a child speaking to you in an unknown language, a conversation with someone at the busstop where is the bus it should’ve been here 4 minutes ago are you going to the same place as me, asking the ice cream seller for their favorite flavor, hearing the book seller what makes them passionate about this specific book, being screamed at by an old man because you’re too slow, people throwing up on the street on a Saturday night, loving someone, forgiving someone, laughing with someone, seeing other people laugh, the bus driver being angry because no one got off after pressing the stop button, man screaming his soul out to sell his tomatoes and this is the price for 1 kg. Why are you not here! Take a step back and observe how colorful all these humans are. Don’t take it personal, soak it up, let it be a movie, an experience. Also take it very personal and make it shift your perception of everything. Be here!

We should all be blessed with good people in our lives, we should be blessed with an understanding of what a good person in our life is, and great fruit of growth in our relationships.

I learned that very often we have to put in thought and reflection in our encounters and individuals we meet, we have to digest and process in retrospect. Only rarely it is a given obviousness what they were meant to teach. Remember; no confrontation or person would become part of your human experience if there’s nothing to learn and realize from.

We have to look deeper, within ourselves and the world; we have to search and ask for the reason of hashems expressions to fully harvest the inner essence of our life’s occurrences. The wisdom and understanding that can be gained is not a given – only if if we cooperate and put in the work we will prosper to the point where we productively grow.