On Being Misunderstood

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Does anyone actually understand you? It seems that, universally, we all have parts of us that are unknown to others (and often even to ourselves).

The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, …, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.” [...]

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