Knowing Somebody

 MR WATSON the quarterback now joins Governor Cuomo as an until quite recently highly respected celebrity whose glow has been significantly diminished by the bright spotlight engendered by salacious accusations against. Both men now seem destined to fall hard from great heights. A perceptive radio sports talk host, referring to celebrities generally, posed the pertinent question: How well do we really know them", referring to the numerous famous people to whom we pay so much superficial attention. His answer was that we hardly know any of them at all, because our information always comes by  way of short sound bytes and highly orchestrated situations, all smiles and clever quips.That set me to thinking.Taken to its logical extreme, we might ask : "How well do we really know ourselves, and each other"? referring to the Socratic maxim "know thyself", Goethe, waxing a bit cynical, said"Know thyself" If I knew myself, I would probably run away!" I like to think that I know myself pretty well, and that I know other people reasonably well. but I'm probably deceiving myself. Goethe, who uttered numerous pithy profundities, also said "We are never deceived. We only deceive ourselves". If you think about it honestly, you come to realize that this is true. What really strike me are two things: That there are many people I have known for decades, but hardly know at all, because I have never engaged in a conversation with them. And, there are many people I have known for decades, have had many conversations with and have spent much time, and yet who, in my opinion, really do not know me well. In high school, many years ago, my close friends and spent a lot of time talking about music, which songs in the top forty were our favorites, which rock n roll bands we liked the most, and so forth. But I distinctly remember that none of them was aware that my favorite kid of music was actually classical music. I never mentioned it, because one of then shared my interest, or at least not to my knowledge. Maybe I should have told them, but I wanted to be considered a true member of the top forty rock n roll set. Who knows, maybe they were also secret classical music lovers. As far as I know, they still don't know about me and Mozart. But than, again, maybe deep down I really don't even know what kind of music I like best, maybe I just think I do.