The Secret Life of the Open Book

I had a friend who once said that I was very good at talking about myself, without saying anything. That's possibly the most profound thing anyone's ever said about me. People, some people at least, don't see that at all; they look at my endless ramblings, my long, intimate writing, listen to me detail that which most find hard to admit - nevermind utter - and think that I am a table laid bare.

Different kinds of people keep different kinds of secrets. One man's confession, is another's open book. It is hard for us not to judge others by the measure of ourselves, but we do it so unconsciously most of the time, that we take our instant misperceptions as instant and absolute truths.

I could share every detail of my existance with you, but you still wouldn't know who I was. The same goes for me peeking into your world. No one is that much of an open book; no one is that see-through. You can tell anyone any number of things, but it doesn't mean all those things add up to enough; it doesn't mean they add up to the knowledge you need, to think you know a person. It doesn't mean you have the right to assume anything, based on the minutia a person will share of themselves. You have to be exceptionally perceptive in order to take all the obvious and distill it to its salient points, thne extrapolate those salient items, into what a modicum of the truth might be.

And still, that truth would be your truth; it might not necessarily be mine.