I posted the painting of the Lady on NextDoor, and it did exactly what I was hoping for: neighbors began providing information about her. Thanks to that post, I now know more about her story.
From what I was able to piece together, she has been sitting there since around the pandemic. She is very clean and keeps her belongings well organized. She used to sleep inside the local library, but people complained because she mumbles to herself and was considered distracting. Neighbors have offered help, food, shelter, and have even called homeless organizations, but apparently she refuses any kind of assistance. She just sits there.
Many neighbors are theorizing about her situation. Someone said they learned from another neighbor that she had a family dispute with her siblings after their mother died, and that they kicked her out. Another person theorizes that she stays there to make them feel guilty. Others think there may be something wrong with her mentally, though they emphasize that she is very clean and well kept. Some say they don’t believe she goes inside anywhere to sleep, as they have seen her sleeping under the awning of a restaurant.
There is a lot of new, speculative information. What is interesting for me is noticing that none of it matches what I originally projected onto her. Many times I feel certain that my theories are correct because the evidence seems to be there, yet I can be very far from the truth.
So right now, I could also be wrong about my job situation. Maybe not. But the point is not to become attached to my projections. Nothing concrete is happening at this moment. This applies not only to this situation, but to many of my assumptions.
There is a difference between intuition and projection. I don’t have the answer to that yet. I want to sit with it on my own and write what I think that difference is, and only later look it up.
Another interesting layer: tonight at book club we discussed Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains,” and it sparked a conversation about AI. I just realized something about the different ways AI responded to me regarding my job issue versus my personal issue.
When I consulted AI about the personal situation, I described my perception of a conversation from my own unique point of view. I gave details: what I saw, the words that were said, how they were said, the gestures, the tones. I essentially provided a full cinematic projection of what I believed was happening. The AI responded by offering a kind of psychoanalysis of the other person, based entirely on the details I gave it.
However, when I consulted AI about the job issue, I again provided information from my point of view: the clues I picked up on, my coworker’s resistance to sharing information, the recent acquisition of the company, and so on. But this time, the first thing AI did was question my perception. It suggested I might be wrong, explained that corporations tend to follow specific behavioral patterns, and pointed out that I might be vulnerable and that my nervous system could be reacting in panic. It even asked me to breathe and calm down. It was a very different approach from the personal situation.
Ironically, in the personal situation, what I had written turned out to be a misunderstanding—a complete projection. Nothing I thought had happened actually happened. In that case, I could have benefited from a more questioning approach, one that made me doubt my interpretation, just as AI did with the corporate issue.
And now I’m sending all of this stream-of-consciousness writing to AI for edit… haha!
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