Soloman the Manatee

I have a stuffed animal. Some people say it's a dolphin, but I've always thought of it as a Manatee. Its name is Soloman. It's rather large, and I use it as a pillow, or I often put it between my knees as I lay in my bed studying; that's comfortable to me, for some reason.

Anyway, the other night, as I had it between my knees, I looked down at it, and I got the acute impression that it was in pain, or was perhaps angry at being used in such an undignified manner. Its black plastic eyes spoke volumes about its suffering, and I started to feel kind of guilty, or perhaps a little scared. I knew that what I was experiencing was not reality, but the impression was still very strong. In fact, it seemed to get stronger the longer I looked at it. It didn't really bother me, because I knew it was just my mind playing tricks on me, so I sort of enjoyed it; I sometimes enjoy experiencing things that obviously cannot really happen; it makes life seem more magical.

But I realized that the experience of feeling the emotions of this stuffed animal was actually not at all different than the experience I often have of feeling the emotions of people around me. The emotions I was getting from Soloman were actually very similar to the ones I perceived I was getting from Not-Dave the other night. It makes me think that in reality I can't feel other people's emotions at all, and that I'm really just projecting what I believe they are feeling.

I wonder if other people find my emotional projection stifling.

The idea of not knowing what other people are feeling makes me very nervous. How will I be able to function? How will I know when I've offended someone? How will I know when I'm pleasing someone? How will I know how to react?

I can't look at the world objectively; it's just too difficult.