Daily Blog Post 398
Who is the best person you know?
If you had asked me this question a few years ago, I would have instantly responded with “my sister”
But now, I’d probably answer that question in a more self-aware narcissistic way: the best person I know is myself.
Not because I don’t think my sister is amazing. She is. But, I think I need to look at this question differently.
I grew up admiring my sister; I put her up on this pedestal as invincible. But, as John Green says in Paper Towns, “‘What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.” In childhood, I thought my mother loved her more. Teachers liked her more. Her grades were better. She was mature, smart, responsible. I played piano because she did, went to Chinese class and felt bad for how behind I was, and I even tried to pick up art and illustration at one point. And to me, those were all things I was supposedly meant to emulate.
But as I grew up, I started to find my own identity. I followed different passions. I created my own path.
In today’s readings in my Human Person class, we said that it was possible to know something and not love them, but then discussed whether it was possible to love something without knowing them. God was used in this context. Do we truly know God?
I spun it in a different way because I don’t follow a religion.
Can I truly know someone else?
I barely know myself… and all these spiraling thoughts from my mind that often run rampant. In fact, I often surprise myself with emotions, with actions, with feelings, with thoughts. Patrick Star said it best: “the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma”
But to love something is to discern that the thing you love is good and just, or at least is actively attempting to achieve that good we all seek.
So I love my sister. I love my friends and family. I love certain people, certain places, certain books, certain things.
And I love myself. So therefore, I am either good and just, or am actively working towards such.
And because I barely know myself, how can I know what other people are truly like? If I never know them at their best and worst. It might be impossible to fully know who someone else is. Nonetheless, I still love other people.
But because I love myself, and because I am attempting to be good, and because I know myself the best out of anyone in this world, then I must answer that I am the best person I know.
If I were to answer with anyone else, then that would mean I am making a judgement call that I know what other people are like and distinguishing individuals from myself. But I don’t know who you are. Or who my sister is. Or who my family is. Not to a full extent that I can discern who they truly are.
And so, I am the best person I know.
Subsequently, I am also the worst person I know. You don’t want to know what cynical thoughts I have up there…
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