Shared Humanity Does Not Erase Individual Difference

Intimacy sometimes produces language of oneness.

We are the same.

I see myself in you.

The distance between us seems to disappear.

Such language can point to a powerful experience of connection.

It should not erase the other person.

Shared humanity and individual difference are not opposites.

We share vulnerability, embodiment, dependence, mortality, social needs, and many capacities for emotion and thought.

We also arrive with different histories, boundaries, desires, responsibilities, perspectives, and choices.

Relationship depends partly on preserving that difference.

If the other person becomes merely an extension of my own identity, listening becomes unnecessary.

I already know what they are because I have decided we are one.

A richer form of connection can hold both levels.

There is common human ground.

There is also this particular person who is not me.

Sameness can create solidarity.

Difference makes relationship possible.