When you look at another person, you don't know what they're
thinking.* You may have a notion.* You may have enough in common
or enough common experience together to venture a strong guess.*
Spend enough time with somebody and you can finish their
sentences for them. But do you really know what they're
thinking? From a young age, we learn roleplaying.* We learn
appropriate ways to act.* We learn appropriate ways to be
inappropriate.* The cultures we are exposed to teach us, through
experience, what roles to expect from others and what roles are
expected of us. We run through scripts with each other.* With
scripts, we can better predict how someone will react and what
they will say and do.* With scripts, they can better predict how
we will react and what we will say and do. You can become
confident that you know what someone else is thinking. But do
you really know what they're thinking? Predictable people make
navigating social situations simple.* You simply have to learn
their scripts and learn your scripts and play your parts and
nobody is any the wiser.* As far as you're concerned, you know
what they are thinking.* As far as they're concerned, they know
what you are thinking. But do they really know what you're
thinking? When you look in the mirror, do *you* know what you're
going to think next? What will you think about in ten seconds?*
What will your thought be in seven minutes? Do you know? If you
don't know what you will be thinking fifty thoughts from now,
how do you know what someone else will be thinking fifth
thoughts from now?* Or two thoughts from now?* Or ... right now?
We have wonderfully elaborate systems for discovering what
someone is thinking.* We have cognitive science.* We have
psychology.* We have stereotypes.* We have societies and
cultures.* We have patterns of thinking that we develop young.
If you share the patterns with someone else, you still don't
know what they're thinking.* Rather, you know what the pattern
is thinking.* You know your script and, more importantly, you
know the script they are following. But even thought you know
the script, Do you really know what they're thinking? Right now?
Isn't that scary?* It shouldn't be scary.* We pretend to know
someone else through and through.* Yet, in the end, we don't.*
We know their roles but not them. So, what do you do? How can we
accurately predict what someone else is going to say or do next?
We can't do it for ourselves.* So why do we expect others around
us to be more predictable than us? Scary thought:* Do you know
what they are thinking?" It shouldn't be scary.* It's common.*
Yet, it *is* scary.* Why? Why?* Because facing an "I don't know"
situation is scary. Certainty means: We can plan our next move.
Certainty means: We know what our next thought, feeling, or
action should be. Certainty means we don't have to be afraid.
