the sum of all parts ...

very rare it is that any of us are the person others perceive us to be ... it's hard enough to come to grips with the person each perceives self to be, so having others misread you is not all that unusual.

but how is it that we can get it so wrong? even when the person misjudged on a consistent basis may be a family member, a longtime lover or a friend of many moons? this is something i have been pondering and i think i have had a breakthrough of sorts. probably not, but the possibility of a breakthrough sounds exciting, doesn't it?

well, this is to what i have arrived ... often times, others are judging our character, those core driving forces, by one context, incident or interaction. so, when my ex-wife (no. 2) called me an 'asshole' every time i didn't do that which she wanted me to, that did not mean i was a complete asshole ... well, maybe i was a complete asshole to her, but not 'complete' in the sense that everyone thought i was an asshole. this can be confusing when you are younger and inexperienced ... but i am learning.

that is to say, maybe i always responded to her calling me an 'asshole' by saying something to the effect of 'i come into contact with hundreds of people in my work, know lots of them, yet you are the only one calling me names. why is that?' maybe i should have been asking myself that question. why was that?

well, here's what i think ... in her contextual basis for gauging my behavior and characterizing it, i was the biggest asshole in her life. but that's just the beginning of this thought train.

see, no one is simply the person of a moment or of a single relationship. we are each a person built over years of experiences, good and bad, and the lessons brought away from each one. and though i know plenty of people with similar experiences to mine, that does not mean we are going to be the same. they are going to process similar events, even shared ones, in a much different way. sort of like considering how one person can be bitten by a dog and pledge to become an animal trainer, while another can be bitten and that turns into a lifelong death fear of canines.

and consider this, i grew up with literally hundreds of people. we all came from basically the same place, had the same teachers, played on the same youth teams, ate the same types of foods from the same types of dishes, but not all of turned out the same. some may have enjoyed little league baseball immensely, while others hated it. some fell in love with the hometown and vowed to make it forever home, while others could not wait to leave and will never return. that doesn't make the place or the people bad in their thinking either way, just different.

the world is a judgemental place and we are all to blame. we enjoy taking small events and turning them into life-defining moments, most often and most enjoyably when defining someone else's life. but how does a person become the person we judge? it's through the sum of all parts, the comprehensive experience and not the singular. which leads to the very basic reality that we are all complex beings, even the not-so-smart ones.

we have all arrived at the points we now stand by a collection of thousands upon thousands of sensations, thoughts, moments, emotions, meetings, conversations and efforts. many of us would like to forget our worst decisions, leaving only good memories and moments for consideration. but it is the good and bad of our own lives that make us the people we are today, for all the ugliness, beauty, evil and compassion we have been able to muster.

it is the sum of all parts, not just the last part.

One.