Can anyone really ever know you?

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart - Goethe

I’ve always been intensely private. I don’t know why, but from a young age I’ve always preferred my own company.

Some would say – and have done so – it is oxymoronic for someone so private to put their own diary on the internet. But to me this is so very different; to be confronted with it in person is intensely awkward, but to put it online is different.

I have also attempted in the past year to slowly let more people into those inner layers – once described by someone as onion-like. This Substack is one of those efforts. The more I have posted about myself, the more comfortable I have become when speaking about those layers of the onion.

What is so interesting to me is the reactions I have had from doing so. Some have said I am an intense person, yet others disagree. Some have called me Type A, yet others have insisted I am Type B. Another called me angry at the world, yet I feel content. One person called me a pessimist, yet another called me an idealist.

It raises the question – but more actually the fear – will anyone really ever know you?

But the real question is: can you ever know yourself?

Philosophers have argued over self-identity for millennia. David Hume takes the view that identity is an illusion; we sense our self through our perceptions, as a result of our experiences. If that’s true, then perhaps knowing ourselves is not about finding a single truth, but about collecting and understanding the different pieces of our journey.

If we imagine the self as a never-ending book, each person, each emotion, and each experience is a new chapter, but the story is never finished. The self isn’t rigid; rather, it is flexible – always in motion.

If we accept that we may never fully know ourselves, a surprising thing happens – we become free. If I had accepted I was who I was at 21, I would have never embarked upon anything like this. The fear of putting this online would have been crippling.

Yet I found within myself the desire to be seen, and the feeling that others would both want to see it and enjoy seeing it because I want to see it in others.

My favourite quote from the German writer Goethe encapsulates it best: “A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”

So, can we ever truly know ourselves? I think not.

But the beauty of life lies in the constant discovery, in the unanswered questions, and in the journey itself.