Can You Feel What You've Never Lived?

I think it’s universally agreed that the arts are renowned for their ability to let us escape the real world. Whether it’s through the distinct sound of music, the immersion of acting, the expression of dance, or even the humor of stand-up comedy, the arts have always been an escapade from the odd reality of life.

But I’ve always wondered: do we have to experience something to understand it?

As a 16-year-old, I can tell you there are a lot of things I haven’t gotten around to seeing, or even fully understanding, in this world. Birth, death, love, heartbreak, all topics we hear so much about are still so . . . distant. I’ve never been a mother caring for her child, a person shattered by heartbreak, or someone who has spent decades building and losing relationships, and yet I assume these roles in my pieces all the time. I perform emotions that I’ve never had the opportunity to experience in the same way, so how much of that emotion conveyed is actually true?

It’s a fascinating concept that one can’t quite put an exact finger on, and it genuinely applies to more people than we might think at first glance. How many of us relate to the same thing? And if so, does it limit us and our creative works? If I’ve never experienced something, does my portrayal of it become inaccurate?

Well, strangely enough, I don’t think so.

I know, 99% percent of the time, a child probably can’t depict the depth of envy, anger, desire, or grief that comes from years of experience. That’s why it’s called wisdom! There are certain emotions that become more complicated as we grow older because our experiences give them more layers and meaning. A heartbreak at sixteen and a heartbreak at fifty are not going to feel exactly the same, and pretending that they are would probably be doing both experiences a disservice.

But I also think that’s only one way of looking at it, because at the core of all these intense feelings are emotions that every human can understand. Okay, hear me out: an adult might feel jealous when comparing themselves to someone else who has all the riches and comforts in the world, but so does a child looking at their friend with the perfect toy they had wished for. The circumstances are completely different, but the feeling underneath them is recognizable. One person may be jealous of wealth, another of attention, another of talent, and another of something as simple as a toy, but somewhere underneath all of these situations is that same uncomfortable feeling of wanting what someone else has.

And this is just one example. Think of all the possible emotions that are shared between humans, regardless of age. Anything and everything ranging from fear and embarrassment to affection and hope. We experience them in completely different circumstances, at completely different intensities, and for completely different reasons, but they’re still emotions that belong to all of us.

The only reason why certain concepts seem difficult to grasp is because we haven’t lived through them yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand part of the emotions behind them. And maybe, that’s one of the strange things about being human: we are constantly trying to understand experiences that we have never lived ourselves.

Perhaps that is exactly why the arts work so well in this realm of philosophy; when an artist steps onto a stage, they are asked to become someone else, often dealing with emotions they’ve never personally encountered. They don’t suddenly gain the life experience of that character, or wake up knowing what it is like to have lived thirty more years.

Instead, I believe they draw from the emotion underlying all these experiences. The circumstances may be unfamiliar, but the emotions aren’t and that understanding changes everything! Because art isn’t asking us to perfectly recreate an experience we have already lived, but maybe it’s asking us to take the pieces of emotion that we do understand and use them to reach toward something we don’t.

That makes me think about something I find especially fascinating: children in the arts. There’s something almost strange and magical about watching a young performer portray an emotion that seems far beyond their years. “Oh, but they’re so cute! That’s probably why it feels right!”

But is it?

If a child gives a performance that genuinely moves us, what exactly are we responding to? Is it their technique? Their expression? The choreography? The story? Of course, all of those things play a role, but there’s something else happening when we see a young person communicate that type of emotion.

We believe them, not because we assume they’ve somehow experienced everything, but because the emotions they communicate still feels recognizable to us. We know they are a child, and that they’ve not lived the decades of experiences their character might have, and yet, for those few moments, we’re willing to accept their portrayal as emotionally real.

And that, to me, is fascinating!

Because if experience were the only way to understand an emotion, wouldn’t a child be incapable of portraying most of the emotions they are asked to portray? Yet somehow, they can make an audience believe in a character who has lived a completely different life.

I think that’s why the arts can make us feel as though we have briefly stepped outside of our human selves. We aren’t literally becoming another person, but we’re finding pieces of ourselves inside someone else’s story.

That’s what makes stepping into character so powerful, because the performer is trying to understand someone else’s life, while the audience is trying to understand the performer’s interpretation of it. Somewhere between those two, an a feeling of mutual respect and understanding passes by.

In this way, art gives us access to lives we will never live, emotions we may never encounter in quite the same way, and perspectives that would otherwise remain completely foreign to us.

So maybe the question isn’t whether we have to experience something to understand it, but rather: how much of another person’s experience can we recognize simply because we are human too?