Want to check if you’re sentient or not?
Passing this test returns inconclusive results. Failing it, though, means you’re a solipsistic fool.
Here’s how it works:
You’re in a queue – maybe for tickets, maybe for food, maybe to buy some merch at a concert. Who knows. It’s a long enough queue that there are folks ahead and behind you.
Eventually, you reach the front of the queue and do what you came for.
If you then turn around and barrel right into the person waiting behind you, you’ve failed this test.
“What, so sentience is just situational awareness?”
No, don’t be ridiculous. Situational awareness would be noticing if someone joined the line behind you. You were in that queue for a while, though. You knew someone was behind you.
Then you forgot they existed. You deleted the entire queue from your mind.
Why?
Well, you weren’t inline anymore, so the queue was pointless. While you were in it, the queue was big and important. That was seconds ago, though. You’ve moved on.
Bumping into someone usually isn’t a big deal. It’s rarely anything more than a few moments of embarrassment with a stranger.
But that isn’t the only time you do that.
I’m not sure if how you do anything is how you do everything is literally true or not. It might be. But even if it’s not always the case, it’s true enough to apply here.
If you delete people from your mind while queueing for something, then you’ll do it in other circumstances too. It’s why you’re so often confused by other people. They don’t seem to make sense, saying and doing the most ridiculous things.
Those only seem ridiculous from your perspective. It’s all perfectly sensible to them.
And if you could understand their logic and worldview – not agree with it, merely understand it – you’d be a lot happier and more successful.
This isn’t something they teach in school, though. “Learn to see the world through other eyes” – that’s often a slogan or promise, but rarely an outcome.
You’re born with the ability to relate to other people, to see the world through their eyes. It’s a cornerstone of what it means to be sentient.
But it’s easy to switch this ability off.
Whether out of laziness, a lack of practice or a desire to dehumanise, you can let this innate human ability slide.
Or you can practice it.
Your Story Isn’t About You teaches you how to spot Failures of Sentience in your own thinking.
From there, it’s easy to fix them – with some reflection.
If you want to thrive and for the world to make sense again, then read, reread and apply it.
You can download it from the signature block of any of my emails – or you can read more about it here: