Being seen vs being looked at
I recently saw this video where they discussed about the distinction between being seen and being looked at. Never thought much about it before, but yes being seen and being looked at are so different.
Being looked at gives the I-It vibe, while being seen puts the person being seen and the person who sees in a I-Thou relationship.
And as someone shy who also walks with a crutch, being looked at gives me the heebies jeebies. Being objectified made me self-conscious.
See me
Then, yesterday I received a notification from YouTube of a comment on a video of mine from 14 years ago.
Other than being pleasantly surprised because it unexpectedly brought back nostalgic memories, I noticed it made me feel seen.
And I realised that’s what I crave, that’s what I am looking for, that’s what drives almost everything I do now. I want to feel seen.
Not just listened to, or even “just” being understood, but being actively seen.
Hearing remarks like “haha your humor is so dark”, “you always knew the best places to eat”, “huh why you always wear green lately”, “you are very peculiar about your word choices” made me feel glad.
People noticing things and telling me about it. The way I made them feel, things that remind them of me, the way I do something, the decisions I make, the words I choose, the piece of work I released, the effort I put in, the qualities they think I have (good, bad, whatever I don’t mind). Any of these — obvious and non obvious — would bring me bits of joy. It does not even need to be praises, the conventional “words of affirmation“, or even “I love you“‘s.
Just small things that say, “I see you“.
And I don’t think it’s not a stretch to say that we all want to be seen and accepted as the whole complex person that we are, beyond some labels, roles, or job titles. We also want to have agency, to matter, and feel like we had an impact on the world, but first and foremost we want to be seen.
Looking at the same thing, seeing different things
“We can look at the same thing and see different things” is something I “know” and have heard many times before (mostly in the context of US politics and the genocide in the middle east), but last week was the first time I experienced it first-hand rather than observing it from a safe distance.
To be exact: I was the one who detonated the flame war in this comment section on Instagram, therefore I found myself in the middle of it.
So far there’s a total of 83 replies to my comment: 8-10 of those are mine, perhaps 2 are defending / agreeing with me, and the rest are attacks 😂 See if you can spot my comment there (@treflatface
I rarely get into political debates with internet strangers (if ever? can’t recall) and I wasn’t planning to, I just commented on a whim.
My comment was purely based on the blunders I see at the level of the debate — the validity of his logic and the preciseness of his terminologies. I haven’t even gotten into the actual substance of the discussion yet, but I immediately got attacked by all these triggered devotees of this religious public figure. The funniest thing is I didn’t even realise who this guy was, until I checked the caption and thought “ohh I’ve heard his name before, always had the impression that he’s a conservative, didn’t know he’s also bad at debating“.
The attacks range from shaming me to be close minded, prejudiced against their hero, how I am a clown, an infidel, that I am pro-LGBTQ (which is not something you can infer based on my spicy comment), to questioning the validity of my assessment of the winner/loser of the debate (aka “you must be so dumb to not see he’s so right and he’s actually kicking her ass here. She’s not winning just because she’s using English“).
But I admit my comment did push the big red “he’s clearly a loser in this” button 😂 that triggers that “defend our leader” reflex, and I didn’t elaborate on the blunders and basis of my “verdict”.
But I doubt it mattered at all. Translating cats’ language to dogs’ language is a fool’s errand.
I’ll save the details and reflection of this “incident” for another post. Let me know if you’re interested in hearing me tell more about it.
But my point is: this experience have helped me upgrade my propositional knowledge into a perspectival knowledge of how we can see one thing and see different things. It’s fascinating. 8/10 would do again.
