Seeing Others

Truly being in one's shoes to feel and understand them, to me, is never fully possible. Even those whose lives aren’t so different from our own, I find that fully understanding and recognizing one's feelings and personal situations is hard to do.

The Ukraine war has left Oleg and his family lost in their own village. Once they have returned, we see Oleg recorded in a building blown up to pieces. We later find out that this was Oleg’s old school. While his friends and him scrummage through the remains of their school, the 11 year old boy says, “Before when the teachers would yell at us we would say wouldn’t it be cool if the school blew up...I would never wish that now.” The moment was a wake up call. A little boy, who like any other boy doesn't like school, now has to deal with the painful truth of what it looks like to actually have a school blown up.

While I can sympathize with Oleg, I can’t imagine what it feels like to have my own school blown up. It can be recognized that it's horrible, but pinpointing the exact level of devastation and sadness is harder to feel. I think that while we can sympathize and emphasize with people who have a similar lifestyle of our own, we can never truly recognize or understand someone else's life because it’s not our life.

Oleg’s life is very different from my civilized, safe life, not being able to experience what he's gone through blocks my full understanding of how he feels. Going from being a normal school boy to a boy who has nothing, I don’t think anyone can understand how that feels.