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Assuming

People assume things really often. Usually through an unconscious or unacknowledged belief that everyone is like them, especially someone they think they know well, whether friend, partner, or family member. When we speak and act from such assumptions, we misperceive and misunderstand.

Not too long ago–but long enough that it does feel like history!–I was dating a man who assumed stuff a lot, and more than occasionally about me. At that time I was becoming aware of the frequency with which spoken assumptions surrounded me. Nothing special about my life, assumptions simply being a reality in the world once you wake up to them. Wishing to point out the problem with making assumptions about me, and about things in general, I said, “When you assume things, you’re usually . . .” He interrupted me with the word “right.” Which, of course, glaringly indicated exactly the problem!!

I responded calmly, “No. You’re usually wrong.” (I intended the “you” in my sentences to be both singular and plural.) A discussion ensued–he being a philosopher and me being the rational, passionate, feeling, and body-aware intellectual that I am–and the relationship ended shortly after that. Not because of his making assumptions, but, as I think of it now, because of a quality that is related to assuming–rigidity, which is a lack of responding to what is really in front of us.

Assuming holds the assumer in place–unable to move an opinion or an idea. Assumptions can grow into or proceed from ideologies, and they can easily be the soil of an emotional fundamentalism, an orthodoxy that is insufficient means for the support of love.

An assumer holds objects of assumption in place, so that their changes and unpredictabilities remain out of perceptual range and their histories survive as far more fixed than any institution’s, nation’s, or individual’s story actually is. If the object of assumption is a person and she believes an unexamined or uncomfortable assumption about herself or complies with that assumption, she suffers confinement by another person’s thinking.

A key to unlocking the prison of assuming is to un-assume, to be unassuming. If the pretension of I-know generates my assumptions, then my being modest is a path to freedom. If my taking for granted generates assumptions, then truly paying attention to where I am, who I’m with, and what I’m doing is a good idea. If my projections generate my assumptions, then I would do well to cultivate spontaneity.

Freedom, knowing where one is, and spontaneity must be experienced, not just contemplated. Experience can only be within one’s own body, in closely feeling its sensations.

• October 14, 2009
• Filed under: Body and mind
• Comments 0