is true connection impossible?

** 7/10/25

Whenever I get into a self-conscious mindset, the people I talk to, or more commonly, what I try to convince myself (of what is most likely the truth), is that everyone is too hyperfixated on their own life and problems to care or think about what might be happening to me at a given point in time. I begin to speculate, how could their problems be as deep, profound, and meaningful as mine, or simply how meaningless could they be (just like many of mine). Well, the truth that I believe is that everyone’s individual conscience subliminally plants an egotistical or anthropocentric view of life deep in each of our minds, keeping us much too occupied with our own struggles. Now obviously there are the empaths, who have the power to genuinely put others first, but in most cases, humans tend to be selfish, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Now obviously, this is an extremely pessimistic outlook which I truly hope is not the definite case, but when thinking of the concept of sonder, the idea that everyone has an equally complex life with problems, nuance, and emotion just as intense as my own, it’s hard to believe that the majority would not prioritize their own feelings and problems over mine.

What I’m trying to get to here is that HOW could we possibly be overly empathetic when we are so isolated, as our emotions may rhyme but never repeat, and in that way we are eternally alone. We can never experience the same exact feelings. Besides the point, there are a few guarantees in life:

1. Death (the limitation factor)

We will all be born independently and die independently.

2. Suffering (the maker of life)

No one can escape suffering; mentality goes a long way. (and the magnitude of it, I guess.

3. Subjectivity (the breaker of life)

No one will EVER experience the same emotion, event, or experience in any way, shape, or form.

So death, the only guarantee that humans might actually experience the same, except we’ll never know because we’ll be dead when we find out. So scratch that.

However, suffering and subjectivity can be rubber banded together because they are the two defining characteristics of humans in my opinion. Suffering is essential to humans, whether great or mundane; it’s our own personal catalyst towards growth, experience, and a deeper understanding of the world. But those two combined have infinite outcomes, like an anthropomorphized version of the coastline paradox; you go deeper and deeper until you realize that the nuance only doesn’t end, and instead, adds to the conglomerate that makes us human. But, with each experience, we CAN become closer in terms of experience, but at the same time, the growth of our conscience is like a branch that continues to build further out from the base, forming into the extremely individualized and idiosyncratic population that shapes our genius and beauty. Every experience only distinguishes us more and more as we form into who we were always meant to be. So how could we ever assume to know and understand someone’s internal landscape when really, it’s an ever-forming and infinitely detailed permutation. Relating to someone and saying ‘I understand’ really can never be true; we simply just echo their version of a story and relate through our own formed vision.

Now I wrote all of that to bridge to this idea of existential isolation, the philosophy and feeling of irreparable and incurable loneliness from others due to a fundamental gap in our understanding and views of the world. The gap arises from our vast differences in subjectivity, brain chemistry, and consciousness, which make it impossible to ever fully understand or be understood by another person.

I love Jean-Paul Sartre’s subject-object philosophy, where he discusses the disempowerment of being simply looked at and observed. He argues that when a subject (the person observing) looks at the object (the person being looked at), the object is stripped of their power and mind, and that the gaze is the most objectifying (literally being turned into an object) action we experience. The mind is boundless, and to encapsulate that mind into a physical body – something that can be brought down to just flesh and skin – is existentially reducing, in a way where we can never fully capture the greatness and potential of a mind.

*It’s like knowing someone’s mind through a phone call and texting, but meeting them physically changes everything you thought you understood.

So does Sartre’s vision show us that discourse is inherently asymmetrical? One person is always doing the seeing, and the other the being seen. But if being seen turns us into objects, then any attempt at empathy fails before it begins. To be automatically projected and reduced from a 4D mind into a 3D body destroys any chance of full disclosure. Instead, we have at most a best guess, limited to our own experiences, biases, and limitations that we can only hope to break. True empathy, then, is never an exact or perfect understanding of another’s thoughts, but the closest we can get to an exploration of the ever solitary mind.

Humans were created to connect, but this view challenges the possibility of a true bond. Real empathy seems elusive when we’re stuck floating at the surface of others’ waters. But maybe, just maybe, the most profound act of love is to honor the uncertainty and mystery of each other, accepting the limitations of our communicative powers. Instead, we coexist with each other’s solitude, knowing that we will never be able to truly understand one another, but somehow feel peace within that sentiment.

**