I watched this movie last night. It was a Rom Com or as I like to call them a, “Ro Co.” It was more up to my lady’s speed. …Did it for her. But, it told the story of how this one girl and guy go for a romantic getaway weekend and the girl had all of these ideas that they were locked up in love but the guy just saw them as a situation in the now. It all unfolded from there.
 
Basically, it was telling the story of how people never really know one another.
 
If you step back in time a bit, back to the year 2000, the musical artist Pete Yorn released a music video for his great song, Strange Condition. In it, his face is totally blurred whenever anyone is looking at him. Meaning, no one really sees who he truly is.
 
I had a very strange experience two days back, on Thanksgiving. We go over to the house of my wife’s cousin, where the family’s Thanksgiving festivities are generally held. The guy is a great host! I could never do what he does. Much of her family were there.
 
Now, I have known the adults in this group for the better part of forty years. Some I met when they were teenagers. They grew up, got married, had children, some got divorced, got married again. Some of the children are now deep into adulthood and living their own life. The point being, I have known these people forever.
 
The family talk got going, as it tends to do at these functions, and one man mentions my book on Hapkido. “You wrote a book,” comes the exclamation expression from the mouth of one of the family members. Like she was in total disbelief. Then another, and then another. I was dumbfounded. I have associated with these people forever, and I realized that at least some of them know absolutely nothing about me. The guy had a copy of the book. The one daughter, who is now in her late twenties, grabs it in awh.
 
“Do you how many books I’ve written,” was the only thing I could think to say.
 
These people don’t know me at all! And, they are supposed to be my family.
 
I realized that nobody knows anything about anybody unless they want to. That they are so locked up in their own life that most do not even care.
 
Now I get it. I am a bit of a reserved person, and I certainly never go out singing my own praises. But, to not know something as elemental as that about me. I mean, come on…
 
I’ve spoken about this a lot in this blog and elsewhere, but whenever you create something, whenever you step into the realm of public attention, people make up conclusions about you. They think they know who and what you are and why you do what you do. But, they are so often wrong in their conclusions. Yet, their conclusions, they broadcast to the world. That’s why I’ve never like sites like Wikipedia. I mean sure, I use it periodically myself to find out information. But, sites like that are so biased. If a person has one fan or a lot of fans, they can completely shift the context of the article. That’s the same if a person has haters. I mean, how is there any truth in that kind of dissemination of information?
 
It's like with my films, particularly since I’ve uploaded many of them to YouTube, I get hit with a lot of questions. And, that’s fine. But, these people don’t even try to do their own research. I mean, for many of the films I have a page on my site where that question was answered a million years ago. But, I guess it comes down to, why bother trying to do your own research?
 
What I am saying here is… Or, many better put, questioning, what do truly know about anybody? Really? Do you try to truly know and understand that individual or do you simply wish to project your own appraisal of their life and their life works?
 
Ask yourself, who do you truly know?
 
Ask yourself, who truly knows who and what you actually are?