It will cease to be an inquiry if answers are accepted without a challenge. Learning is to see “what is” against perception. We build analogies to compare the unknown. We get restless upon seeing something new. With haste we put a name to it. A tag that helps us bring it within our realm of knowledge. When a person doesn’t behave as we expected, that behavior is outside that realm. We struggle to accept it without reason.
Then how do we proceed without naming things? We must know what is it that we are looking at. We are scared of the dark, afraid of walking ahead. At home, the most familiar place, we can move around with eyes closed. The same goes for other senses.
When we meet a new person, the same feeling creeps in. Unable to know about him/her, we make assumptions. What holds us back from knowing a person? Lack of interest, opinions, fear of an unpleasant experience. We assume that we can know a person by their appearance or opinions that others hold of them. This gets in our way. We look but do not see. We blur our vision with the prejudices to avoid making mistakes, emotional or otherwise. To avoid attachments that may not be mutual. Yet, all this is not part of the person. It is us.