A mind is a private tornado

What you don't know about other people is everything

“The single biggest problem in communication
is the illusion that is has taken place.”
–George Bernard Shaw

Should you find a window into the mental states of other people, consider that you barely have access to your own. Everyone must all plod through denial, self-talk, projection, and trauma to excavate even a nugget of personal truth. Yet you blithely read others like tea leaves: “Susan has trust issues.”

You can’t read minds, so don’t even try.

When you start reading minds, you stop listening. You’re scribbling when you might be paying attention (Don't research and write at the same time) and what you don’t know about other people is everything.

You cannot summarize a novel after reading a single random page. Yet we attempt this feat with people. People are more complicated than books, because people never finish writing themselves. The masks humans wear are like press releases on the status of an active tornado.

Instead of reading people, you can hold space; allow them to sound out the unformed words in their psyche, without judgment. Let them explore their interior and share what they find. Be the one not talking. They aren’t just revealing themselves, they’re finding themselves too.

There is no greater gift than the feeling of being heard. This is the universal craving, as common as the need to breathe.