You're not me

There are many ways we experience other people. First and foremost, other people are different than we are. We experience the differences quite strongly in many instances. Here is an example. Walking down the street, you pass a homeless person. Are you repulsed or fearful? Many people are both. Why is that? The answer is psychological involving many possibilities. Here is just one.

Let's begin by considering you. You know your ego (beliefs, values and identity) fairly well. You know your likes and dislikes, your habits and routines, your hygienic practices and more. You live within a circle of one-you.

Now assume someone comes to visit you for a weekend. During that visit you often make unconscious (your hidden psychology) and conscious (your awareness) comparisons between you and your visitor or "the other." Most likely, there are very few common characteristics. As a result, there is a strong psychological tendency to consider the other person different, distasteful or strange.

Most people are comfortable with their ways, habits and quirks, but not with another person's cultural behaviors, personal beliefs and routines. The other is considered outside the circle, and therefore, at best can be tolerated. At worst, the other receives projections (seeing the other through the unconscious) and are attributed with all types of undesirable characteristics. A prominent example involves the histories of African and Native Americans.

This same dynamic occurs as we "scale up" the circle from ourselves to our loved ones. Most often, we include our loved ones in our accepted circle of familiarity. We consider them to be more like us than our visitor or the other. Our most intimate circle with ourselves is now followed by a circle of acceptable similarities and tolerance with our loved ones.

We can continue to scale up the circle to include friendships but this circle is weaker in tolerance and similarities; yet, it is often sustained. Beyond this circle, scaling up doesn't usually happen and anyone outside our circles are considered the other, possessing traits and characteristics that are distasteful, untrustworthy, foreign, strange, unlikable, threatening, fearful and more.

This psychological dynamic most likely is instinctual and as old as human nature, however, it is an instinct that is outdated. Can we overcome this instinct? Well, it's not easy to overcome an instinct but we can expand our consciousness and develop ourselves, creating an ability to override the instinct. Doing this produces a much more empathic and caring life for us, as well as the other. Now, how could anyone argue against that?