One of the perennial questions that are asked as writing prompts, or in quizzes that purport to be able to determine one’s personality in one way or another is “What superpower would you want to possess?” One of the answers that springs most obviously to my mind is the gift or ability to read the minds of others. How a desire to have this gift springs is not generally through happy experience. Indeed, those who grow up in dysfunctional and abusive families often find it necessary to develop some sort of skill in divining the intentions of the most abusive and dysfunctional members of their family. Such people are often deeply sensitive to initial conditions, or actions that serve as an indicator of moods, to determine whether conditions are favorable or unfavorable, so that one can see whether one can relax one’s guard for the evening or whether one has to remain tense and vigilant and prepared to defend one’s self (or escape) in case of trouble. When communication is open and honest and kind (not always an easy balance to attain), there is little need to read anyone else’s mind, because it is to some extent open and nonthreatening. When matters are threatening and hidden, though, one has to develop intuition far beyond normal simply to cope with the difficulties of day-to-day life. Such habits often harm us long after we should have moved past them.

Last Sabbath, a three year old child whom I deeply care for and love as someone I would like a future daughter to be like was upset at me because she expected me to read her mind about something she wanted me to do but that she was unwilling to tell me. While it was a bit hurtful to see her react angrily to the fact that I was clearly incapable of responding to her as she wished, it is a bit cute when a small child expects an adult, even a very intelligent one, to read what is on her mind. It is far less cute when people far older (especially girls and women) expect others to know what is on their mind in the absence of communication. Yet this is unfortunately all too common. I’m not a mind reader—I have one mind that I can read and that is my own, and I don’t even appreciate or enjoy reading my own mind much of the time. Nor is anyone else; even those who pride themselves on their intuition often have a difficult time understanding what is going on inside of my mind, or even more so my heart. That which is fragile and sensitive I feel a strong duty to protect, and that includes those tender parts of my own nature that have to be protected and preserved in the face of a deeply cruel and intensely hostile world. So, not only can I not read the minds of others, but other people have not generally been very good at reading my mind, even when it is displayed in print, largely because my mind is pretty complicated to begin with, even when my thoughts are expressed openly.

Should we even expect others to read our minds at all, though? I would think not. Given the fact that all of us, in at least some areas, are deeply private people about some things, none of us want our internal lives to be displayed for the entire world to see. It is immensely stressful to have one’s thoughts and feelings exposed to the wide world around, especially when there is a lack of reciprocity where others expect (and appreciate) candor from us but are unwilling or unable to return the favor. Likewise, we all wish to be able to have our own privacy, even if our desires are not blameworthy, simply because some aspects of our thoughts and feelings are not really the business of anyone else. Few, if any, of us can successfully endure the intense scrutiny that comes from being thought to be completely known. I do not envy celebrities their status—I would not wish for people to endlessly gossip and prevaricate about my personal life, weave dark and salacious stories about my nonexistent love life out of whole cloth, all to amuse and horrify a fickle and decadent crowd of people who would be painfully bored to know the truths of my existence. No, if we wish to share ourselves with others, it should be on our own terms, to those who have earned our trust through their generous spirits, through their wise counsel, and through their compassionate hearts. And we too ought to value the confidence that others place in us, and not to betray that by exposing them to the censure of an unkind world, seeing as how we are all tormented by the intense scrutiny that results from being considered a celebrity in some circle. Perhaps it might be nice to imagine ourselves as reading minds in the course of writing a prompt or imagining a superpower for some kind of silly online quiz, but in reality, few of us have the sort of gentle touch and discretion to avoid using that gift for evil. It is well that we seldom know the thoughts of people except for those who cannot help but spill them out [1], and we ought to be more gracious in handling those thoughts and feelings we do know, for we will be held accountable to the standard of kindness or harshness by which we treat others, and we could all use a great deal of mercy.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/spilling-out-ink-like-blood/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/bear-the-silence/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/safety-valve/