Universality

It's amazing how similar each and everyone of us really are, and yet don't realize that. We all go through much the same thing, and a lot of our reactions are the same. And yet, there's a certain blindness when we're the ones making others react. How can we not see that our actions cause such ripples in others that we ourselves also experience? Are not emotions universal? The pain or love or joy that one experiences do not differ much from what each of us feels. They differ by degree and by our reactions to them, but in the end, is not a painful experience just plain painful? Is not a certain happiness just plain happy? We call them by words familiar to us because they are familiar to us. We know what it means when we say "happy" or "sad" or "lonely" or "excited." In the end, we're all just the same. We feel what others feel, we think what others think, we act how other act. But how can we still not see the "other?"