First off, it is highly unlikely that any two minds have the potential to even comprehend one another, but I want to adress how offensive I find the creation of such a phrase. It is one to be used with others to create a sense of security, but it is just an empathetic counterfeit. A real understanding is desirable but it cannot be duplicated, and requires no vocal communication.
Whew! that was a lot of words but I still failed to communicate what I was really thinking about in the first place.
I was thinking about how I think about my mom's sense of smell or how others sense anything and then we use words that are agreed to mean something universal. For instance, if I think something is blue. I teach my children that whatever it is they see that we are looking at we refer to it as blue, but I have no simple way to know that what we both refer to as blue is the same color. And I was thinking about how people like stories they can relate to.so that they can liken it to things they do not understand, but it is not sure that what is being said by the author is translating to mean the same thing to the reader.
Lastly, saving it for last means it must be the most important, I was thinking about how people try to interject little comments when trying to listen and be helpful by saying, "Yeah, me, too". or, "I know what you mean." When seriously, no matter how well meaning they might be they could not comprehend what you are saying the way you are saying it. Language is flawed! In this paragraph, I wanted toinclude a tid bit about language that I picked up from my roomate from Japan. She didnt say I know but constantly made sounds, It bothered me when listening (eaves dropping) to her phone conversations, until she expained that they were just noises made to let the speaker know that you were listening. I notice the excessivde use of Hmm in FinalFantasy 7 videos. but, in perspective, it is less like Oh in English but more like I know, not in definition, but it function.
But, I have said so much before in the phrase, "Everyone has a story." and really even when we try to hear other stories we only hear what they describe in terms of what our own story tells us about life. I was specificaly refering to things, thoughts in particular, that I have ascribed to people. That become part of them or their personality, a far as I know, which might be totally false. I am always thinking about things that people say or do And I think "oh, such and such cares about that." An example might be that someone talks about portion conrol and I instantly think, "That's something Michael Moore cares about." Alot of things I think about people, like what they would care about or think about something, have no real origin.like in college, I got really embarassed anytime people talked about Jane Eyre infront of one guy. I actually blushed visibly and was extremely untrusting of my "microexpressions" when someone jokingly said, "What? does he have an insane wife hiding upstairs?" But, really, no one would ever even suspect anything or have a clue as to what I was thinking with out outward indications. duh! I learned to mask myself better subsequently, though I still get embarassed by little harmless things that happen, even though they would not cause the same ideas in others even if they said "I know."
That's another silly thing about "I know." If I tell a little story about a girl who gets lost in the woods and every tree starts to look the same until she remembers that someone told her that moss grows on a certain side of the trunk, She gains her bearings and continues on to familiarity where eventually she finds her home and lives hapily ever after. I may have just given someone the answer to their life-long dilemma. Unwittingly they tell this story to someone else thinking that they are bearing their soul because to them it means something very personal, so when someone half-listening says, "I know" to them saying that "we have indications like the moss on trees all around us." The person agreeing only meant that "yes, the sun is not the only way to tell which was is east." But, now, the first person believes that this listener has had a similar situation in their life. I think that happens to me.
I was watching a cartoon with the kids today, ooh another one came to mind, too. In the frst cartoon, a child tells their parent something about what a friend said and wisely the parent asks, "what did they actually say?" To me, that was popularly admitting that we all believe things the way we want to understand them. The second cartoon was a Veggie Tale called the "Rumour weed." Where a rumor gets started based on truth that was spoken, but misunderstood. The parent solved the trouble by asking the child to make sure they understand the words others use before concluding things and telling others things that might cause hardship for another. That's fine and all, but I do not see the need of including the latter part at all anyway, because who decides what is going to cause a hardship?
I think of a lot of the jokes Elmo tells which poke fun at the things we say that are true in meaning, but not necessarily in definition. In the Best of Elmo 2, Elmo tells a robot that they need to HOP to it. ofcourse we all KNOW what he meant,but the robot only knows what it is defined as. Sort of humorous, too is when Elmo prtends tobe a letter Y and the robot guesses Y but Elmo keeps answering Why.
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