I'm honestly not convinced anymore that there are shared experiences. And I mean that way beyond the scope of nationality, gender identity, race, age, or any other identity label you can affix to a person. I mean it in a more universal way, like looking up at the sky. Most people, man or woman, black or white, old or young, lawyer or painter, have looked up at the sky, but I'm not convinced that any two people have ever had the same experience of looking at the sky, even if they were standing right next to each other holding hands, because they have different experiences within the bodies doing the looking; different eyes, different minds, different internal monologues. They'll walk away with different interpretations of what it means.
Beyond that, I'm not convinced I've ever had the same experience of anything twice. I'm not convinced that Mt. Rainier isn't a different mountain every time I see it, or that I'm not a different person every time I see it. Or that every time I feel pain or beauty or grief it isn't an entirely new experience. I'm not convinced I wake up the same person I was when I went to bed. I'm not convinced that life is anything more than dying an infinite number of unfathomably small deaths and being reborn in an infinite number of unfathomably small ways.
I think we're right to feel alone sometimes in a world with 7 billion people. I think we're wrong to compare ourselves to anything, even to ourselves. I think we're right to be very glad to be here, and to be whoever we are, and to be together now, because nothing will ever be the same again.
