To Know Others is to Know Thyself
February 16, 2024
Writer: Zoe Sinkford
Editor: Lily Hutchinson
I never know what I want. I mean - and this is ridiculous - you could ask me to choose what I want to eat for dinner and it would take me a full 20 minutes to come up with just the options to choose from, let alone my ultimate decision.
Last week I turned 22, and naturally my friends and I wanted to celebrate the glorious day of my birth. As I was sitting with my circle of friends, surrounded by the people who know me best, one of them asked me, “Where do you want to go for your birthday, or do you want me to decide for you?” My immediate and expected response was for him to decide, and he responded “for anyone else, I would make them choose where to go, but I know you”.
Everyone, including me, broke out in laughter at how accurate and specific his interpretation of me was. But, beneath the jubilant giggles and shared smiles, I was overcome with gratitude for how deeply my friends understood me. For instance, it's normally my friends who decide where we should go and spend the night out. But it's after we returned from those fun nights out that I have begun to reflect on how I truly feel seen and appreciated by them. I spent a lot of time that night and in the following days reflecting on how he was able to change his actions for me based on the mere fact that he knew I struggled with making decisions.
“But I know you”.
While my friends may have a deep understanding of who I am, do I?
In the previous couple of weeks, I have been grappling with how I can best learn about who I really am and what I want out of life, beyond a future career or ideal family structure. Socrates. . . or wait. . . it could’ve been Aristotle, regardless, one of the great philosophers once said that “to know thyself is to know wisdom”. While I do believe that there is incredible power in knowing who you are, whether it be your beliefs, habits, or personality, I also think that there has to be more to understanding yourself than introspection and reflective thinking. After all, there is more to life than just you. We must also consider the people we interact with and the way that we interact with them.
I argue that it is not knowing thyself that begets wisdom, but knowing others as well. A fundamental part of every human life includes interactions with other people: moving to the right side of the sidewalk when walking past a stranger so that they can pass you easily, texting your mom when you are coming home later than expected so that she doesn’t worry (because you know that she will), even choosing where to celebrate a friend’s birthday so that they don’t feel any stress making the choice themselves speaks to the indispensable nature of who we are as individuals.
These choices are all quick, sometimes subconscious decisions, that we make regarding the people we care about. In a split second, we are able to shift our mentality and change our behaviors in order to accommodate those we love most. And while these choices have tangible impacts on other people, there is much to be learned about ourselves through interaction.
When meditating on what separates me from the collective group of individuals that make up the human race, what fundamentally separates my soul from everyone else’s is that I find myself reflecting on the relationships I have with my friends. I have learned more about myself through dissecting my interactions with others than I have by ruminating on what may potentially separate me from the collective.
If one of my friends is overwhelmed with schoolwork, I offer to make them dinner. If my sister needs to pick up something from the store, I am the first to offer her a ride to the mall. If my family is preparing to set up a holiday dinner, immediately I offer to set the table and help cook. I am compassionate, empathic, and caring. I believe myself to be intelligent, only because of the way that I can relate the information I learn in class to those of different majors.
Almost all of the most fundamental parts of who I am, I have realized through the synergy of friendship.
While I am not one of “the greats” and wouldn’t dare compare myself to philosophers such as Nietsche, Kant, or Descartes - after all I don’t even have a college degree, yet - I know that I wouldn’t have an understanding of who I am without the people that surround me. I am only who I interact with. So, if anyone else is feeling isolated in their understanding of who they are, I recommend looking towards the people that you care about. Look to those that you have spent time trying to understand and love because that alone is enough to guide you in the direction of understanding who you are.
