Perceptibility-Understanding-Insecurity

In the past few days, one thing that has figured quite a few times in my dialogues with my friends, is being perceptive - the ability to understand a person very fast and be observant. One of my friend told me that I'm perceptive, while the other shredded apart this attribute when self proclaimed. It set me wondering about the three things mentioned in the title- perceptive, understanding, insecurity.

Why the three together? Well somewhere I feel as human emotions, the three are connected. Simply put, a perceptive person understands someone too well to make him/her insecure. Naah ain't that simple right? So lets look at each of them individually first

per·cep·tive
–adjective
having or showing keenness of insight, understanding, or intuition

I doubt if there would be people who'd not wish to associate this adjective with themselves. And yet there would be very few who would perhaps understand the real truth behind it. What exactly do we mean by being perceptive? Don't we confuse understanding with being perceptive? Isn't it just a need to be acclaimed as someone knowledgeable who can read between lines or see through the things? Is it just a chicken or egg kind of situation - which came first .. perceptiveness or understanding? Is it just the more and more of understanding about more and more people that makes us perceptive? Or is it trial and error of perceptiveness being proved right or wrong basis the experience? Too many questions .. Isn't it? And as usual too few answers.

un·der·stand
–verb (used with object)
to perceive the meaning of; grasp the idea of; comprehend:

Ah .. perceive the meaning of .. So perception comes first doesn't it? Then what's so special about being understanding? Ok for a change lets not make it a question. Its just a need to find our own stereotype images that we have built and the images that we need to prove our perceptions right. We understand and then we judge. Perfect recipe for pain. We judge and we are right so we hurt. We judge and we are wrong, so we get hurt.

in·se·cu·ri·ty
–noun, plural -ties.
lack of confidence or assurance; self-doubt

One illness that has no cure. No one can do a bit about it but oneself. Others can only comfort you in the fact that we shouldn't be judging ourselves. And yet this disease inflicts all of us. In one manner or the other all of us are a victim to it. But some overcome it and most don't. The same gets expressed as the vlunerability or fear in one form or other.

So what is the point that I'm heading to? Lets get back to the core of the co-relation between the three. The chain begins where we feel the need to be understood. The much celebrated foundation of relationship. And to be understood we celebrate the presence of perceptiveness. We are drawn to such people who hold this quality in the hope that they would satiate our hunger to be understood. Yet so often when this quality is overbearing we start feeling threatened, insecure. The fear of being revealed more than we wish to. Lets face it, when we say we want to be understood we are referring only to the part that we wish to reveal. We still wish to keep a part as mystery within ourselves. No one wants to be naked.

Thus, the vicious cycle, of finding someone perceptive, being understood and being understood beyond the comfort levels to land up being insecure.

So what's the alternate? Where do we end up screwing? Is it the fallacy that attraction is presumed to be in the invisible. Or is it that we hate the power of observation because we may lack it ourselves? On this two quotes
"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."
-Oscar Wilde
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
-George Bernard Shaw

What's the conclusion then? I believe till the time perceptiveness is overrated and celebrated, for those who have it, it will be a curse. And those who don't have it, it will be a fatal attraction. The only escape is the drive to discover ourselves, both through our own eyes and through others as well. Because if we discover ourselves we'd not be surprised by perceptiveness and we would inhibit our own insecurities as well.

To end on that note:
"It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late."
- W. Somerset Maugham