Winnie Lim

My partner and I were were surprised we had radically different interpretations of a particular scene of a kdrama we had just watched. She had thought the lines were full of hope and optimism, whereas I thought they were un-empathetic and victim-blaming. There are some life lessons or insights that have to be derived internally by one’s self – they may sound tone-deaf if they were delivered by someone else. The exact same words, but the way the words come into our consciousness matter. 

I thought it was an interesting example of how my partner’s and my brains are wired differently. To me, she only saw positive intentions behind the scene because she had a well-balanced mind and thankfully, doesn’t know what it means to feel chronically cornered, alone, and hopeless. I have spent too much of my life feeling that way, so I tend to be unreceptive and even annoyed when people tell me to “think positive” despite never having to walk a day in my mind or shoes.

I don’t think there is a “right” interpretation for that scene. What we receive is an outcome of who we are. That is the wonder of art and media. We can have the opposite reaction to what the creator has intended. I guess this is why some people are afraid to publish their opinions in public, because no matter how carefully you try to word something, there will always be people reading them the wrong way. 

I have personally come a long way because I can now observe these situations with some detachment, especially when it comes to conversations with my partner. We used to have these intense arguments because we simply saw and lived our realities differently. We belong under the same blue sky and to the same small country, but the world she encountered was so different from mine. I used to ask all these questions about her growing up years and be really amazed at her experiences. I was surprised to learn that people can live life without much internal conflict, that their minds can actually be aligned with them, that it is not always a given to constantly feel hurt.

We can have differing internal realities too from day to day. I am sure even the most optimistic of us have woken up on certain days and felt like the world seemed dark and depressing. A trigger, a single event can temporarily or permanently change the way we experience the world. Sometimes all it takes is one kind encounter or one horrible incident. Other times it could be a generational event – like covid. The people living in this world are mostly the same pre and post pandemic, but the world and how I view humanity has forever transformed in my eyes.

My sense of reality has changed as I age, because my internal reality is being constantly reshaped as I encounter new learnings and experiences. When I look back at my life, I realised I was basically the same person from my late teens to my late 20s, and from then onwards suddenly I kept changing. Why? I started reading again. A lot. I look back at some of my old journal entries and cringe, and yet I also feel such empathy for my younger selves. The narrow sense of reality my younger selves had negatively influenced the way they had experienced the world. Apart from books: partners, friends, mentors, therapists can change the way we perceive reality through their interactions with us. 

This is why to a certain extent, despite my chronic suicidal tendencies, I am not in favour of killing one’s self prematurely (unless illness and oppressive circumstances are involved). Because there is no way we can know what is ahead of us, how we will change. It is very easy to believe (as I did) that the world and our selves will forever be a certain way. If life has been shit for a long while, the probability of it continuing to be shit is pretty high. But there are a multitude of reasons why life is shit, and plenty of times it is because of the external environment, societal expectations and conditioning. If we are lucky, age and accumulated experiences can teach us that we can carve a life beyond what people expect of us. 

But I am still miserable after removing most of the external causes of my own suffering. That is because it is extremely difficult to change one’s internal conditioning, the conditioned tendency to respond in ingrained ways. But at the very least I am experiencing a different spectrum of life. Through my journals I can see that despite my persistent belief that I am still the same old miserable person, I am really less miserable, and the sources of my misery are now different. So it makes me wonder about who my future selves would be.

We seem to live in the same reality, but we are all experiencing different realities according to how our mind perceives. The way we experience reality is profoundly influenced by our socio-economic status, gender, race, cultures, upbringing, possibly genes, etc. It is why the world can be so beautiful as we experience the art and products that arise out of these differences, and yet cause so much suffering because there is a lack of understanding and empathy. It is also why it can be so challenging to achieve understanding between different generations. People are a product of their times, and for many, their sense of reality is permanently anchored by the world that existed in their time. 

Our relationships, and by extension – the world can be so much better if we retain an innate understanding: that we seem to share the same physical reality but the actual reality we experience can be vastly different. That is why the very same event can happen to two people but their responses may be like chalk and cheese, or why not every person is negatively impacted by traumatic events. Some people see meaning and lessons, others get permanently scarred. Just because as individuals we choose to accept and endure some hardship does not mean we should expect others to do the same. They may have already been invisibly broken a million times. Some people’s families feel like safety nets, other people’s families feel like prisons. The trauma our ancestors endured can affect many later generations. Even nutrition during fetal times can permanently affect the way we perceive reality because of the influence of hormones. When one has a lot more stress hormones coursing through their bodies, everything feels like a provocation.

My partner and I are still learning to navigate the differences between how we experience the very same physical reality. It has been 7 years but we are still surprised the way we read the same situation differently. Sometimes we say things that sound right in our own heads but end up offensive to the other. It is easy to accuse each other of being reactive and unreasonable. It takes much longer and more studying to truly see why the other has such a different response.

Considering our differences we think it is a miracle that we are still very much together. Somehow most of the time, the differences between us are beneficial and nourishing. Our two worlds collide and a magical intersection is birthed, constantly transforming because we are also changing as individuals. We can only hope that this continues to be a deep source of rest and inspiration for us.

Being aware of the ever-changing nature of how I perceive reality is life-changing. There is a lot less fixation and stubbornness. Wanting things to only go a very specific way causes a lot of suffering. Because I know I will change, I become a lot more open-minded when I encounter things that I tend to dislike or unfamiliar to me. I still get caught up in my personal loops and fixations, but I hope as I age I’ll become better at inviting awareness into my perception, and that I’ll develop more room and wisdom within myself to perceive the realities of people I am still struggling to understand.

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