As the orientation continues to shift, something even more subtle begins to dissolve. It's not just that I no longer need another human being to tell me who I am. I also no longer need my own experience to tell me who the other is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That doesn't mean I stop observing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It means that I am becoming increasingly aware of not confusing my experience of another person with who that person actually is. My experience is real. It tells me something about what is happening inside me when we meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it doesn't automatically tell me who you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship. The other no longer needs to validate me. Nor do they need to embody my explanations, my hopes, or my conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are no longer responsible for completing my understanding of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are simply another human being. No more. No less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paradoxically, this also changes my own freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As long as I need another human being to recognize what I see, agree with what I understand, or get to where I have gotten to, my own experience remains silently linked to theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope itself can become a subtle form of bonding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because hope is wrong. But because it silently places a part of my life in a future that depends on another human being. As this bond gradually softens, something unexpected becomes possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can let another person be exactly who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because I have become indifferent. But because I no longer need their way of experiencing reality to complete my own. This is not the end of the relationship. Maybe it is the beginning of meeting each other without making each other responsible for who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And perhaps that is precisely an expression of freedom.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":970,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"class_list":["post-969","bloggpost","type-bloggpost","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n