Finding Awareness: The Journey of Self-discovery by Amit Pagedar

Author:Amit Pagedar [Pagedar, Amit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-12T18:30:00+00:00

NOTE:

As we saw in this chapter, a judgment stands in for real understanding and brings short-term comfort. Why does it do so? Why does a judgment have this power to make us feel that it must be true? For instance, no one ever believes that their judgments are false, do they? They feel as if their evaluations are capturing the truth of the matter, especially our judgments about ourselves. To understand this, we have to find out where our judgments come from. We are entering the depths of our ego.

21 - Beliefs

Our confidence in our judgments comes from the staunchness of our beliefs.

Since I started writing on Instagram in 2018, I have spoken to thousands of people both in person and over the web. Sometimes our conversations would span days or weeks, as we would continue exchanging ideas and thoughts about a certain issue. For about a year and a half, I conducted these discussions without sharing any personal information about myself.

One particular follower had been reading my work for more than a year and had asked me several questions over this period. Some of them related to her second divorce and her son, who was almost my age. Our discussions would sometimes continue over many days via Instagram messaging. All this while, she never asked my name, how I looked, or even what my gender was. We never exchanged any personally identifiable information whatsoever. She seemed content with how our talks were going, I was happy to be anonymous and so was she.

Eventually, as time went on, I began to get multiple requests from other readers to share a picture of me along with more details of my personal life. It seemed like I had gone on as long enough without telling anyone who I was. For me, it was always about the message. However, I obliged because it felt right; the time had come. So I uploaded a picture of me with my dog.

The next morning, as I opened my message inbox, it was filled with responses from various people, most of whom seemed surprised. The first message was from her. “All this time have I been talking to you? I am so embarrassed. I spoke to you believing that you were a woman in her sixties. This is the end of our conversation. Thank you.” Needless to say, I never heard from her again. Some of the other messages I received were, “You don’t look anything like I pictured you”; “I didn’t know you were a man. Men never understand my problems”; “I thought you were a woman, though you sound much older than you look”; and so on.

In their defense, I probably should have told them who I was sooner, although I wondered why the messenger mattered as much as the message. They had formed a mental picture about me, based on certain beliefs, and they expected my appearance to align with that mental image. Every time we hold a belief we begin to form judgments based on them.

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