To Be Seen

“Love enables us to grasp another human being in the innermost core of their personality.”

— Viktor Frankl

One of the thinkers who has most influenced me is Viktor Frankl.

He believed that love allows us to see another person not only as they are today, but as they might become.

I often wonder if one of the quiet challenges of modern life is not simply loneliness, but the growing absence of relationships that allow us to be deeply known.

We have never been more connected, yet many of us spend less uninterrupted time with one another. We live in a culture that values speed, productivity and constant stimulation. The slow work of really knowing another person can be difficult to find.

To truly see someone asks something different of us. It requires attention. Time. Curiosity. It asks us to stay present long enough for another person’s story to unfold.

Perhaps this is why relationships matter so deeply.

Whether between parent and child, partners, close friends or within therapy, it is often through being consistently seen, understood and emotionally attuned to that we discover parts of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden.

Perhaps we don’t become ourselves alone.

Perhaps we become ourselves through being known.

Inspired by Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.