When we look
at someone else
and observe their actions
and believe that we know
their motivations
and how they feel,
...
we are projecting.
We are assuming that we knowall there is to know
about the situation
that the other person is in.
We are assuming that whatever history of experience
they have personally had leading up to the present,
it is either insignificant, or, the same as our own.
We are assuming that
their action speaks for itself
as if every action
which a person takes
has a specific meaning
which never changes
no matter where that action
is taken, with whom it is taken,
or, under the circumstances
it is taken.
We are assuming
that the feelings,
or lack of feeling,
expressed by the other person
particularly relates
to the values we associate
with that feeling.
We believe that
we know the other person
as if they were ourselves.
We award them the honour
of our experience, traumas,
ability to perceive
and to express
--- or lack thereof,
and our obsessions
and compulsions.
We assume that
they operate under
the same expectations, needs,
and assumptions that we do.
That is a lot
of assumptions!
(more interesting stuff below)
