Reflections of Reflections

Lefou, I'm afraid I've been thinking. A dangerous pastime, I know.
(I'm not even going to aplogise for opening with a Disney quote. You can't make me.)

But it's true- I think a lot. And so, I assume, does everyone else. They keyword there is 'assume'. Because Professor X is a fictional character and Uri Geller is an idiot, humans have never been able to read each other's minds.
I should say at this point that is an extremely good thing, in my opinion. Fiction (such as the aforementioned Professor Xavier) likes to present mind-reading as a rather trite, clean-cut affair. The user will frown, place two fingers to their temple (to...massage the psychic juices? Bonus points if they use BOTH hands) and suddenly the audible, perfectly formed sentences of the target's mind shall unveil themselves. Then the guy with the laser eyes will blow something up so the kids don't get bored. But can you imagine actually reading a mind? If the average person's mental processes are anything like mine, the result will be less coherent information and more like:
DIDIBRUSHMYTEETHTHISMORNINGTHATDOGISSOCUTE*THEME FROM ANIMORPHS*HANGONTHEREARETWOWEEKSLEFTTILLIHAVETOHANDINTHATASSIGNMENTOMYGOODNESSIDIDN'TLOCKTHECARDOORIFDINOSAURSSTILLEXISTEDIWOULDRIDEONETOWORKIWONDERWHATDOGFOODTASTESLIKE*THEME FROM SOME ANIME*DOCATSHAVEDREAMSICAN'TBELIEVEIT'SNOTBUTTEROOHANOTHERPUPPY*INCESSANT K-POP*

Sorry, professor. You now have an aneurysm.

Getting back on topic, until we invent some clever, technological method of rendering a person's thoughts in some kind of tangible, comprehensible form, they remain our most private possessions. And this means that our understanding of other people will always rely on empathy.

Often I find myself performing a mundane task and wondering if I might have been doing it wrong my entire life. How did I learn to butter toast? By observation, but it's been a while since I keenly paid attention to someone else's procedure. For all I know, there is a socially acceptable way to spread butter that I am entirely unaware of, and for years I have been spreading in utterly the wrong way, and I will soon be hunted down and made to pay for my crimes of butter wastage by the Supreme Council of Effective Dairy Usage, which probably exists only for the purposes of this analogy but may, in fact, be a thing.

I feel like I'm off-topic again.

So we can never know another person fully. We often go about our lives under a number of assumptions, but if these are ever examined, we would find that many opinions we believe to be common are actually exclusive to us.

Everyone hated Harry Potter 7 Part II, right? Well, actually, it was beloved by all. I hated it, for reasons I have been able to make abundantly clear to my friends (did you see Voldemort and Draco's hug? Did you actually see it??) but in this matter, I know I'm truly alone.
How is it that we can differ in opinion so radically? Does this make each of us fundamentally different as humans, to the point where it's a wonder we can even pretend to understand one another? Does Ralph Fiennes even know what a real hug looks like??

Okay, back up. To answer that last question first, no. He does not. You ruined the concept of hugs for me, Ralph Fiennes, and you should be ashamed.

As for whether we're so fundamentally different...well, depends on the depth. Culture is a huge factor. I have a lot of friends from various parts of Asia, and while this may be partly due to my general introversion, I've always found a cultural block that prevents our friendship going past a certain point. We were raised to think differently, and that's a difficult thing to change.
But as humans, it's a different story. In the end, we all want the same things: to be valued, to be part of a group, and to be needed. We want to be respected, we need companionship (some more than others...) and we simply want to feel loved. We also occasionally want to see videos of cats doing stupid things, and I include this for the reason that I have not yet met an exception.

So what it boils down to is this: we can't fully understand our fellow man's thoughts. We won't all hold the same opinions, we can't all come to the same conclusions, and we can never expect people to simply 'see things our way'. But what really matters in the end is that we know this. That's what empathy really is; not understanding a person's inner workings, but simply knowing that we are all different and bearing that in mind when dealing with your fellow humans. We can make an effort to put ourselves in other people's shoes, certainly, but the first and most important step is knowing that those shoes are almost definitely a different size, shape and brand to yours. And the laces won't be done up quite the same way.

I'm going to finish this metaphor before it becomes as awkward as one of Ralph Fiennes' hugs.
That's pretty awkward.